Harry Lev v. United States

Background

Multiple defendants and the Government are involved in three separate petitions (Nos. 435, 436, and 437) asking the Supreme Court to review disputed trial-procedure rulings. At issue are summaries or reports of statements that a government witness gave earlier to government investigators and whether those materials should have been produced to the defendants during the trials. One petition expressly relied on this Court’s earlier decision in Jencks v. U.S., and the parties disagree about what procedures apply to producing those statements.

Reasoning

The Court granted review but limited its questions. In No. 435 the grant focuses on whether a reviewing court may examine, in private, a sealed summary and ex parte affidavits supplied by the prosecutor to decide if the summary must be disclosed under 18 U.S.C. §3500 when no one claims the summary includes irrelevant material. It also asked whether summaries and reports of prior investigator interviews are available to defendants under §3500 and whether §3500 provides the only method for making them available. In No. 436 review was limited to whether denying production of a witness statement prejudiced the defendant in light of Jencks. No. 437 was granted, and the cases were consolidated for argument; three hours were allowed and Justice Stewart did not participate.

Real world impact

The review will decide how and when defendants can obtain investigators’ summaries of witness remarks and whether §3500 governs that process exclusively. This is a grant of review, not a final ruling, so the ultimate rules about disclosure and court procedures could still change after full briefing and argument.