United States v. Rockwell International Corporation

PROCEEDINGS IN THE DISTRICT COURT

This is a criminal case in which Rockwell International Corporation, Inc. (Rockwell), a defense contractor, pled guilty to a charge of procurement fraud. The grand jury charged Rockwell in a superceding indictment in June of 1988 with violations of 18 U.S.C. §§ 371 , 401, 1001, and 1341 (West 1988). Rockwell moved to dismiss the indictment or to suppress evidence, claiming the government failed to honor its promises and follow its own rules established by the Voluntary Disclosure Program.

The Voluntary Disclosure Program (the program) was initiated in 1986 by the government to encourage defense contractors to engage in self-policing to reduce the likelihood of fraud related to accounting on Department of Defense contracts. In exchange for their disclosures of fraud, the program offered defense contractors certain benefits.

The government claimed that even though Rockwell had made certain disclosures, it had done so under circumstances that did not meet the criteria for participation in the program. The government also claimed Rockwell’s disclosures were not based on any commitments or promises made by the government in exchange for those…

concurring in the judgment:

I

Although I do not disagree with the majority’s conclusion that Rockwell did not comply with a set of objective requirements for admission into the Voluntary Disclosure Program, I respectfully suggest that *936 my colleagues reach this decision for the wrong reason. Nothing Rockwell could have done would have resulted in its automatic acceptance into the program. The reason Rockwell’s actions did not constitute compliance is that there are no objective requirements with which it could have complied. The program established by the Taft letter and its enclosure leaves the subjective determination whether to admit a particular contractor to the unreviewable discretion of the Department of Defense.

My colleagues deliberately bypass the first and critical question in this case: whether the government documents at issue here establish a program that is susceptible to judicial enforcement. Principles of orderly decision-making require that we must first determine whether those documents set forth criteria to be applied by the judiciary. Only if they do does it become necessary for us to decide whether in a given case such criteria have been satisfied.

The…

924 F.2d 928 36 Cont.Cas.Fed. (CCH) 76,012 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. ROCKWELL INTERNATIONAL CORPORATION, Defendant-Appellant. No. 89-50120. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Argued and Submitted May 10, 1990. Decided Jan. 31, 1991. James F. Neal, Neal & Harwell, Nashville, Tenn., Thomas E. Holliday, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, Los Angeles, Cal., for defendant-appellant. George B. Newhouse, Jr., Asst. U.S. Atty., Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiff-appellee. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California. Before REINHARDT and LEAVY, Circuit Judges, and THOMPSON * , District Judge. LEAVY, Circuit Judge: PROCEEDINGS IN THE DISTRICT COURT 1 This is a criminal case in which Rockwell International Corporation, Inc. (Rockwell), a defense contractor, pled guilty to a charge of procurement fraud. The grand jury charged Rockwell in a superceding indictment in June of 1988 with violations of 18 U.S.C. Secs. 371 , 401, 1001, and 1341 (West 1988). Rockwell moved to dismiss the indictment or to suppress evidence, claiming the government failed to honor its promises and follow its own rules established by the Voluntary…