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Federal Grand Jury Practice and Procedure - 5th Edition - Hardcover
Federal Grand Jury Practice and Procedure - 5th Edition - Electronic
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CHAPTER 1
INTRODUCTION
If cross-examination is "the greatest legal engine ever invented for
the discovery of truth,"1 then the federal grand jury is certainly the
greatest legal engine ever invented for the discovery of evidence. The
grand jury's investigative power is extraordinary, allowing prosecutors
virtually unlimited access to persons and things that interest them.
Privileges, even the privilege against self-incrimination, usually do not
encumber a grand jury investigation. Recalcitrant witnesses may be
imprisoned until they become more cooperative. False testimony is
severely punished.
The grand jury is ubiquitous throughout the federal criminal justice
system. This is not simply because the Fifth Amendment grants to
every person "held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous
crime," the right to "a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury." An
extensive grand jury investigation has preceded every prosecution of
significance or notoriety in recent decades.2 In the 1990's, the grand
jury attained considerable notoriety with the "Iran-Contra" and
"Whitewater" investigations. Yet, the grand jury remains a mystery to
most citizens and an anomaly to many lawyers.
Like the Bible, grand jury history can be used to prove almost any
point. Courts have invoked grand jury history to restrict individual rights,3
to expand individual rights,4 and to exhibit their great learning. Numerous
works have been written setting out the grand jury's history in painstaking
detail.5
Yet, the practitioner or judge who looks to grand jury history to
answer a question of modern day criminal practice will almost certainly not
find the answer. Today, grand jury practice is governed largely by formal
Judge Paul S. Diamond has served as a Judge on the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania since 2004. He was in private practice for twenty-one years in two large Philadelphia firms, where he concentrated in the areas of complex criminal and commercial litigation. Judge Diamond previously served as a prosecutor in Philadelphia, conducting grand jury investigations. While serving on the American Bar Association's Grand Jury and Amicus Curiae Briefs Subcommittees, he authored amicus briefs submitted on behalf of the ABA to the First and Third Circuit Courts of Appeal in United States v. Klubock and Baylson v. Disciplinary Board--cases addressing questions of first impression respecting the practice of subpoenaing defense counsel to testify before the grand jury. A graduate of Columbia University and the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Judge Diamond has been a member of the American Law Institute since 1999.
This book was written in the author's private capacity as a lawyer, and the book does not in any way constitute an official statement of the law or policy or otherwise reflect the views of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
