This case presents two intertwined questions concerning a civil litigant's right to obtain transcripts
I
Respondent Petrol Stops Northwest is a gasoline retailer unaffiliated with any major oil company. In 1973, it operated 104 service stations located in Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington, and several other States. On December 13, 1973, respondent filed an antitrust action in the District of Arizona against 12 large oil companies, including petitioners Douglas Oil Co. of California and Phillips Petroleum Co.
Although the issues and defendants in the two actions were substantially the same, the cases were assigned to two different judges in the District of Arizona. In February 1974, respondents served upon petitioners a set of interrogatories which included a request that petitioners state whether either of their companies at any time between January 1, 1968, and December 14, 1974 (sic), had had any communication with any of their competitors concerning the wholesale price of gasoline to be sold to unaffiliated retailers. Petitioners also were asked to produce any documents they had concerning
In the meantime, the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice had been investigating since 1972 the pricing behavior on the west coast of several major oil companies, including petitioners. See App. 26. As part of this investigation, employees of petitioners were called to testify before a grand jury empaneled in the Central District of California. The Government's investigation culminated on March 19, 1975, when the grand jury returned an indictment charging petitioners and four other oil companies with having conspired to fix the price of "rebrand gasoline" in California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada, and Arizona.
In October 1976, respondents served upon petitioners requests under Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 34 for production of the grand jury transcripts in petitioners' possession. Petitioners objected to the requests for production, arguing that the transcripts were not relevant to the private antitrust actions and that they were not likely to lead to any admissible evidence. Respondents did not pursue their discovery requests by making a motion in the Arizona trial court under Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 37 to compel discovery. See n. 17, infra. Rather, they filed a petition in the District Court for the Central District of California asking that court, as guardian of the grand jury transcripts under Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 6 (e), to order them released to respondents. An attorney from the Antitrust Division of the Department of Justice appeared and indicated that the Government had no objection to respondents' receiving the transcripts already made available to petitioners under Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 16 (a) (1) (A). He suggested to the court, however, that the real parties in interest were petitioners, and therefore that they should be given an opportunity to be heard. The California District Court accepted this suggestion, and petitioners participated in the proceedings as parties adverse to respondents.
After briefing and oral argument, the court ordered the Chief of the Antitrust Division's Los Angeles Office "to produce for [respondents'] inspection and copying all grand jury transcripts previously disclosed to Phillips Petroleum Company or Douglas Oil Company of California or their attorneys
On appeal, the Ninth Circuit affirmed the disclosure order. Petrol Stops Northwest v. United States, 571 F.2d 1127 (1978). The Court of Appeals noted that under United States v. Procter & Gamble Co., 356 U.S. 677 (1958), a party seeking access to grand jury transcripts must show a "particularized need." In evaluating the strength of the need shown in the present case, the Ninth Circuit considered two factors: the need for continued grand jury secrecy and respondents' need for the requested material. The court found the former need to be insubstantial, as the grand jury proceeding had concluded three years before and the transcripts already had been released to petitioners. As to respondents' claim, the court conceded that it knew little about the Arizona proceedings, but speculated that the transcripts would facilitate the prosecution of respondents' civil suits: Petitioners' answers to the 1974 interrogatories concerning price communications with competitors appeared to be at odds with their pleas of nolo contendere in the California criminal action.
II
Petitioners contend that the courts below erred in holding that, because the grand jury had dissolved and the requested material had been disclosed already to the defendants, respondents
We consistently have recognized that the proper functioning of our grand jury system depends upon the secrecy of grand jury proceedings. See, e. g., United States v. Procter & Gamble Co., supra.
For all of these reasons, courts have been reluctant to lift unnecessarily the veil of secrecy from the grand jury. At the same time, it has been recognized that in some situations justice may demand that discrete portions of transcripts be
In Dennis v. United States, 384 U.S. 855 (1966), the Court considered a request for disclosure of grand jury records in quite different circumstances. It was there held to be an abuse of discretion for a District Court in a criminal trial to refuse to disclose to the defendants the grand jury testimony of four witnesses who some years earlier had appeared before a grand jury investigating activities of the defendants. The grand jury had completed its investigation, and the witnesses whose testimony was sought already had testified in public concerning the same matters. The Court noted that "[n]one of the reasons traditionally advanced to justify nondisclosure of grand jury minutes" was significant in those circumstances, id., at 872 n. 18, whereas the defendants had shown it to be likely that the witnesses' testimony at trial was inconsistent with their prior grand jury testimony.
Applying these principles to the present case, we conclude that neither the District Court nor the Court of Appeals erred in the standard by which it assessed the request for disclosure under Rule 6 (e). The District Court made clear that the question before it was whether a particularized need for disclosure outweighed the interest in continued grand jury secrecy. See App. 53-55. Similarly, the Court of Appeals correctly understood that the standard enunciated in Procter & Gamble requires a court to examine the extent of the need for continuing grand jury secrecy, the need for disclosure, and
III
Petitioners contend, irrespective of the legal standard applied, that the District Court for the Central District of California was not the proper court to rule on respondents' motion for disclosure. Petitioners note that the Court of Appeals and the District Court both purported to base their decisions in part upon the need for use of the requested material in the civil antitrust proceedings pending in Arizona.
Although the question is an important one, this Court heretofore has had no occasion to consider which court or courts may direct disclosure of grand jury minutes under Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 6 (e).
Quite apart from practical necessity, the policies underlying Rule 6 (e) dictate that the grand jury's supervisory court participate in reviewing such requests, as it is in the best position to determine the continuing need for grand jury secrecy. Ideally, the judge who supervised the grand jury should review the request for disclosure, as he will have firsthand knowledge of the grand jury's activities. But even other judges of the district where the grand jury sat may be able
It does not follow, however, that in every case the court in which the grand jury sat should make the final decision whether a request for disclosure under Rule 6 (e) should be granted. Where, as in this case, the request is made for use in a case pending in another district, the judges of the court having custody of the grand jury transcripts will have no firsthand knowledge of the litigation in which the transcripts allegedly are needed, and no practical means by which such knowledge can be obtained. In such a case, a judge in the district of the grand jury cannot weigh in an informed manner the need for disclosure against the need for maintaining grand jury secrecy. Thus, it may well be impossible for that court to apply the standard required by the decisions of this Court, reiterated above, for determining whether the veil of secrecy should be lifted. See supra, at 221-224.
In the Electrical Equipment Cases, a federal court contemplated a similar quandary. Following the convictions of 29 heavy electrical equipment manufacturers for price fixing, about 1,900 private damages suits were filed in 34 Federal Districts around the country. See Note, Release of Grand Jury Minutes in the National Deposition Program of the Electrical Equipment Cases, 112 U. Pa. L. Rev. 1133 (1964). During one of these suits, plaintiffs asked the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania to disclose portions
Recognizing, however, that the other District Courts in which related actions were pending might face similar requests for the grand jury minutes under his control, Judge Clary outlined a procedure by which parties in the future could put forward such requests. In the court's words:
In the present case, the District Court for the Central District of California was called upon to make an evaluation entirely beyond its expertise. The District Judge readily conceded that he had no knowledge of the civil proceedings pending several hundred miles away in Arizona. App. 58. Nonetheless, he was asked to rule whether there was a "particularized need" for disclosure of portions of the grand jury transcript and whether this need outweighed the need for continued grand jury secrecy. Generally we leave it to the considered discretion of the district court to determine the proper response to requests for disclosure under Rule 6 (e). See Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. v. United States, 360 U. S., at 399. We have a duty, however, to guide the exercise of discretion by district courts, and when necessary to overturn discretionary decisions under Rule 6 (e). See, e. g., Dennis v. United States, 384 U.S. 855 (1966).
We find that the District Court here abused its discretion in releasing directly to respondents the grand jury minutes
The possibility of an unnecessary breach of grand jury secrecy in situations such as this is not insignificant. A court more familiar with the course of the antitrust litigation might have seen important differences between the allegations of the indictment and the contours of the conspiracy respondents sought to prove in their civil actions—differences indicating that disclosure would likely be of little value to respondents, save perhaps as a mechanism for general discovery. Alternatively,
Under these circumstances, the better practice would have been for the District Court, after making a written evaluation of the need for continued grand jury secrecy and a determination that the limited evidence before it showed that disclosure might be appropriate, to send the requested materials to the court where the civil cases were pending.
We do not suggest, of course, that such a procedure would be required in every case arising under Rule 6 (e). Circumstances that dictate the need for cooperative action between the courts of different districts will vary, and procedures to deal with the many variations are best left to the rulemaking procedures established by Congress. Undoubtedly there will be cases in which the court to whom the Rule 6 (e) request is directed will be able intelligently, on the basis of limited knowledge, to decide that disclosure plainly is inappropriate or that justice requires immediate disclosure to the requesting party, without reference of the matter to any other court. Our decision today therefore is restricted to situations, such as that presented by this case, in which the district court having custody of the grand jury records is unlikely to have dependable knowledge of the status of, and the needs of the parties in, the civil suit in which the desired transcripts are to be used.
The judgment of the Court of Appeals is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
MR. JUSTICE REHNQUIST, concurring.
I join the Court's opinion because I agree with its conclusions on the merits of the issue of the availability of the grand jury transcripts to these private treble-damages action plaintiffs. I do not feel that the Court can leave
This case is not like United States v. Procter & Gamble Co., 356 U.S. 677 (1958). In Procter & Gamble, the defendants in a civil action brought by the Government sought discovery of grand jury minutes pursuant to Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 34.
MR. JUSTICE STEVENS, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and MR. JUSTICE STEWART join, dissenting.
Although I join all but the last nine paragraphs of the Court's opinion, I cannot agree with the conclusion that the
Had I been the District Judge presented with respondents' request, I would have exercised my discretion in the same way he did. In light of today's holding, it now appears that I would have been wrong. But I do not find the Court's view on the merits of the decision below nearly as troubling as its expansive view of its appellate function in this area in which trial judges usually have broad latitude.
FootNotes
"Since October, 1969, it has been Phillips' policy to refrain from any conversations or communications with any and all of its competitors relating in any way to prices except in situations where Phillips is selling to or buying from a competitor and the price of the product being bought and sold obviously must be discussed." 2 Record 6.
"Rebrand gasoline" is defined in the indictment to mean "gasoline sold for resale in service stations under a trademark or brand name not owned or controlled by an oil refiner." Id., at 124. It appears to be undisputed that the gasoline purchased by respondents from the major oil companies was "rebrand gasoline" within the meaning of the indictment.
"A grand juror, an interpreter, a stenographer, an operator of a recording device, a typist who transcribes recorded testimony, [or] an attorney for the Government . . . shall not disclose matters occurring before the grand jury, except as otherwise provided for in these rules. . . . A knowing violation of rule 6 may be punished as a contempt of court."
Although the purpose for grand jury secrecy originally was protection of the criminally accused against an overreaching Crown, see Calkins, Grand Jury Secrecy, supra, with time it came to be viewed as necessary for the proper functioning of the grand jury. See n. 10, infra.
"(1) To prevent the escape of those whose indictment may be contemplated; (2) to insure the utmost freedom to the grand jury in its deliberations, and to prevent persons subject to indictment or their friends from importuning the grand jurors; (3) to prevent subornation of perjury or tampering with the witness who may testify before [the] grand jury and later appear at the trial of those indicted by it; (4) to encourage free and untrammeled disclosures by persons who have information with respect to the commission of crimes; (5) to protect innocent accused who is exonerated from disclosure of the fact that he has been under investigation, and from the expense of standing trial where there was no probability of guilt.' "
"(e) Secrecy of Proceedings and Disclosure.—
"(1) General rule.—A grand juror, an interpreter, a stenographer, an operator of a recording device, a typist who transcribes recorded testimony, an attorney for the Government, or any person to whom disclosure is made under paragraph (2) (A) (ii) of this subdivision shall not disclose matters occurring before the grand jury, except as otherwise provided for in these rules. No obligation of secrecy may be imposed on any person except in accordance with this rule. A knowing violation of rule 6 may be punished as a contempt of court.
"(2) Exceptions.—
"(A) Disclosure otherwise prohibited by this rule of matters occurring before the grand jury, other than its deliberations and the vote of any grand juror, may be made to—
"(i) an attorney for the government for use in the performance of such attorney's duty; and
"(ii) such government personnel as are deemed necessary by an attorney for the government to assist an attorney for the government in the performance of such attorney's duty to enforce Federal criminal law.
"(B) Any person to whom matters are disclosed under subparagraph (A) (ii) of this paragraph shall not utilize that grand jury material for any purpose other than assisting the attorney for the government in the performance of such attorney's duty to enforce Federal criminal law. An attorney for the government shall promptly provide the district court, before which was impaneled the grand jury whose material has been so disclosed, with the names of the persons to whom such disclosure has been made.
"(C) Disclosure otherwise prohibited by this rule of matters occurring before the grand jury may also be made—
"(i) when so directed by a court preliminarily to or in connection with a judicial proceeding; or
"(ii) when permitted by a court at the request of the defendant, upon a showing that grounds may exist for a motion to dismiss the indictment because of matters occurring before the grand jury.
"(3) Sealed Indictments.—The Federal magistrate to whom an indictment is returned may direct that the indictment be kept secret until the defendant is in custody or has been released pending trial. Thereupon the clerk shall seal the indictment and no person shall disclose the return of the indictment except when necessary for the issuance and execution of a warrant or summons."
Although Fed. Rule Crim. Proc. 6 (e) was amended in 1977, all parties agree that the changes do not bear upon the issues in the present case.
Contrary to the statements in the dissenting opinion, post, at 235 n. 3, and 236 n. 8, we do not "admonish [the] trial judge" by concluding that there was an abuse of discretion. We recognize that the proper procedure in a case of this kind had not been established in the Ninth Circuit or by this Court at the time of the trial court's ruling. Thus, the trial court— whose lot it was to act on respondents' request—had neither authoritative guidance as to the proper procedure to be followed nor familiarity with the civil or criminal proceedings. One purpose of our decision today is to afford such guidance in cases of this kind.
The dissenting opinion argues that petitioners' failure to demand reference to the Arizona court justified the District Court's granting respondents' discovery request regardless of its implications. See ibid. With respect to grand jury secrecy, a matter of great sensitivity impinging upon the public interest, courts cannot be free to act merely because the parties have failed to specify precisely the relief to which they are entitled. Such carte blanche is particularly inappropriate in the present case, where petitioners argued before the District Court that it lacked the expertise required to make a fair determination of the need for disclosure. The issue upon which we rule today, therefore, was presented to the District Court by petitioners.
"I would be very glad through an overabundance of precaution, if you think it would be appropriate, to telephone Judge Walsh and Judge Frey to see if they have any objection, but it doesn't seem to me that I should relegate these people to make their application to those judges when they have taken what I think is a proper step in coming here." App. 56.
Instead of responding that it would be "appropriate" for the judge to communicate with the judges in Arizona, counsel for petitioners once again reiterated the argument—implicitly rejected by the Court in today's decision—that the District Judge should simply have denied the Criminal Rule 6 (e) request and relegated the entire matter to the Arizona judges for decision under Civil Rule 37. See ante, at 226. The fact that petitioners relied exclusively on this admittedly invalid objection to the production request should bar them from making the new argument in this Court that the District Judge should have transferred the Rule 6 (e) motion to the Arizona courts. Even if that argument is cognizable here, I find inexplicable the Court's determination that the District Judge abused his discretion because the accommodation he suggested sua sponte— orally communicating with the judges in Arizona about the Rule 6 (e) motion and announcing their collective decision himself—is not the slightly different one that a majority of this Court would have chosen—formally transferring the Rule 6 (e) motion to the Arizona judges and forcing them to announce the collective decisions. See ante, at 230-231.
"As far as relevance, I would think that there is a prima facie relevance because of the nature of the grand jury inquiry with relation to the proceedings here concerned." App. 58.
"MR. THURSTON [counsel for Douglas Oil]: . . . It is possible that there were—not possible. It is the fact that those grand jury proceedings concerned a number of different levels of sale, both at the wholesale and retail levels, whereas the proceedings in Arizona may not involve such a broad territory."
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