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Criminal Procedure Keyed to Dressler
United States v. Armstrong
Citation:
517 U.S. 456, 116 S.Ct. 1480, 134 L.Ed.2d 687.Facts
The defendants were indicted on certain drug and firearm charges. In response to the indictment, the defendants filed a motion for discovery or for dismissal of the indictment, alleging that they were selected for federal prosecution because they are black. In support of their motion, they stated that in every one of the same charge cases closed by the office during the prior year, the defendant was black.
The Government opposed the motion, arguing, among other things, that there was no evidence or allegation “that the Government has acted unfairly or has prosecuted non-black defendants or failed to prosecute them.” The District Court granted the discovery motion. It ordered the Government provide a list of all cases from the last three years in which the Government charged both cocaine and firearms offenses, to identify the race of the defendants in those cases, to identify what levels of law enforcement were involved in the investigations of those cases, and to explain its criteria for deciding to prosecute those defendants for federal cocaine offenses.
When the Government indicated it would not comply with the court’s discovery order, the court dismissed the case. The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed, holding that a defendant is not required to demonstrate that the government has failed to prosecute others who are similarly situated in a selective prosecution case.
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