US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

LAWN V. UNITED STATES, 355 U. S. 339 (1958)

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U.S. Supreme Court

Lawn v. United States, 355 U.S. 339 (1958)

Lawn v. United States

No. 9

Argued October 14, 1957

Decided January 13, 1958*

355 U.S. 339

Syllabus

Indictments returned by a grand jury in 1952, charging petitioners with evading and conspiring to evade federal income taxes, were dismissed by the District Court on the ground that their constitutional privilege against self-incrimination had been violated by requiring them to testify and produce records before that grand jury while criminal informations charging tax evasions were pending against them, without being warned of their constitutional privilege. In 1953, they were indicted by another grand jury for substantially the same offenses, and they were convicted in a federal court. Both before and at the beginning of their trial, they moved (1) for a hearing to determine whether, in procuring the indictment, the Government had used testimony given or documents produced by them before the 1952 grand jury or leads and clues furnished thereby, and (2) to suppress the use at the trial of all such evidence and all evidence derived therefrom. The court denied these motions, but said that if, during the trial, petitioners had reason to believe that illegally obtained material was being or might be used against them, they could object at that time. On appeal, they challenged the validity of their convictions because of denial of these motions and on other grounds.

Held: the convictions are sustained. Pp. 355 U. S. 341-363.

1. In the circumstances of this case, petitioners were not entitled to a preliminary hearing to enable them to satisfy their unsupported suspicions that the 1953 grand jury which returned this indictment had made direct or derivative use of the materials they had produced before the 1952 grand jury. Pp. 355 U. S. 348-350.

(a) Petitioners had laid no foundation for the holding of such a preliminary hearing. Pp. 355 U. S. 348-349. chanrobles.com-red

Page 355 U. S. 340

(b) An indictment returned by a legally constituted unbiased grand jury, if valid on its face, is enough to call for a trial of the charge on the merits, and satisfies the requirements of the Fifth Amendment. Pp. 355 U. S. 349-350.

2. Receipt in evidence at the trial of a photostatic copy of a canceled check and its corresponding check stub, obtained from petitioner Lawn in the 1952 grand jury proceeding, did not deprive him of due process in violation of the Fifth Amendment, because it appears from the record that his counsel consciously and intentionally waived any objection to their receipt in evidence. Pp. 355 U. S. 350-355.

(a) In the circumstances of this case, denial of petitioners' pretrial motion to suppress the use in evidence of materials obtained from petitioners in the 1952 grand jury proceeding did not preserve Lawn's objections to these exhibits when his counsel consciously and intentionally waived objection to them. Pp. 355 U. S. 353-354.

(b) The Government has filed in this Court what is said to be a transcript of a hearing accorded Lawn at his request in 1952, which it says contains photostatic copies of the check and check stub in question voluntarily produced by him; but his motion to strike the transcript and the portions of the Government's brief relating thereto is sustained, as this Court looks only to the certified record in deciding questions presented. P. 355 U. S. 354.

3. On the record in this case, there is no factual basis for petitioners' contention that they were denied an opportunity to examine and cross-examine witnesses at the trial to determine whether evidence derived from leads and clues furnished by materials obtained from them in the 1952 grand jury proceedings was used by the prosecution at the trial, and that this deprived them of due process in violation of the Fifth Amendment. Pp. 355 U. S. 355-358.

4. The evidence was sufficient to sustain the convictions of petitioners Lawn and Livorsi. Pp. 355 U. S. 358-362.

5. On the record in this case, petitioner Lawn was not deprived of a fair trial by a statement made by government counsel in his closing summation to the jury that, "We vouch for [Roth and Lubben] because we think they are telling the truth." P. 355 U. S. 359, n, 15.

6. The contention of petitioners Giglio and Livorsi that the trial court erred in denying their motion for production of Lubben's federal income tax return for 1946, all testimony given by him before the grand jury, and all written statements made by him to chanrobles.com-red

Page 355 U. S. 341

any agent of the Government is not properly before this Court, because that issue was not raised in the Court of Appeals nor mentioned in the petition for certiorari filed in this Court. P. 362, n 16.

232 F.2d 589 affirmed.



























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