United States v. Alfred Joseph Samango

The Government appeals from an order dismissing a Superseding Indictment returned by a federal Grand Jury for the District of Hawaii on December 19, 1977. We affirm.

GRAND JURY PROCEEDINGS

On May 5, 1975, Dionisia Ferrer arrived in Honolulu from Tahiti with 13V2 pounds of cocaine concealed in the false bottoms of two suitcases. On August 29,1975, she was indicted. The grand jury, after indicting Ferrer, took further testimony on possible drug smuggling conspiracies but failed to return indictments for conspiracy. As part of this continuing investigation, Samango appeared before the grand jury on March 19, 1976.

At the outset of Samango’s testimony, the prosecutor gave the grand jury a lengthy and heated account of the Government’s dissatisfaction with Samango’s per formance under a nonprosecution agreement. When Samango requested to confer with his attorney after the first question relating to the subject of the investigation, the prosecutor responded:

Instead of questioning Samango directly concerning his admitted acquaintance with several of the defendants, the prosecutor dwelled on Samango’s alleged statements to DEA Agent Joel Wong on October 29, 1975 —statements which…