BRACY Et Al. v. UNITED STATES

Background

A group of defendants convicted of several narcotics offenses appealed and lost in the Court of Appeals. After the appeals court denied rehearing and issued its mandate, the defendants asked a Justice to stay enforcement of that judgment while they sought Supreme Court review. Their main claim is that a witness committed perjury before the grand jury that returned the indictment; the witness later admitted the false testimony at trial, and the defendants asked the trial court to dismiss the indictment because the prosecutor did not disclose the perjury sooner.

Reasoning

The Justice considered whether perjured testimony before a grand jury requires dismissing an indictment. He explained that a grand jury’s job is to decide whether there is probable cause to charge someone, not to decide the truth of the charges. Because of that limited role, the Justice relied on past decisions holding that indictments need not be thrown out merely because the grand jury heard hearsay or evidence obtained improperly. He concluded it was unlikely that at least four Justices would agree to disturb the appeals court’s ruling and therefore denied the requested stay.

Real world impact

The immediate result is that the convictions and the appeals court judgment will remain in effect while any further review proceeds. This decision makes clear that allegations of perjury before a grand jury do not by themselves short-circuit the charging process, and defendants seeking relief on that ground face a high hurdle before the Supreme Court will intervene.