United States v. Rinieri

• Decision Date: 12 September 1962
• Docket Number: No. 405,Docket 27740.,405
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Antoine B. RINIERI, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

308 F.2d 24 (1962)

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Antoine B. RINIERI, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 405, Docket 27740.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Argued August 21, 1962.

Decided September 12, 1962.

Certiorari Denied December 10, 1962.

C. Joseph Hallinan, Jr., New York City, for defendant-appellant.

Joseph J. Marcheso, Asst. U. S. Atty. (Joseph P. Hoey, U. S. Atty. for the Eastern Dist. of New York, on the brief), for appellee.

Before LUMBARD, Chief Judge, and MOORE and MARSHALL, Circuit Judges.

Certiorari Denied December 10, 1962. See 83 S.Ct. 310.

MARSHALL, Circuit Judge.

Antoine Rinieri appeals from a judgment of conviction for contempt of court entered by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York, Bruchhausen, J., for his refusal to answer two questions before a Grand Jury after being directed to do so. He was sentenced to three months imprisonment for each refusal, the two sentences to run consecutively. We have considered the challenges which appellant has made to the proceedings in the District Court and have concluded that the conviction must be affirmed.

On June 18, 1962, Rinieri, a citizen of France, was returning to Europe on a plane which had left Chicago and was scheduled to land en route at Montreal. For reasons which are not clear, the plane landed instead in New York; Rinieri was taken off and questioned by government officials, including Customs officers, who took from his possession approximately $247,400 in cash. At the conclusion of the questioning which lasted into the early morning, he was served with a subpoena to appear at 9 o'clock the same morning before a federal Grand Jury sitting in the Eastern District of New York.

After consulting counsel Rinieri appeared before the Grand Jury. He testified that he had arrived in the United States about a week before with the intention of purchasing art objects from an American. But he refused to tell the Grand Jury, in response to two questions which the foreman had directed him to answer, (1) the name of the American from whom he intended to purchase the art objects, and (2) the name of a friend in Switzerland in whose safe he said he had kept his American dollars before coming to the United States. He based his refusal to answer on a "code of business ethics" and a desire not to violate "confidential relationships." He specifically declined to rely upon the Fifth Amendment.

Rinieri was then brought before Judge Bruchhausen in the District Court where, accompanied by his lawyer, he repeated his intention to refuse to answer. Judge Bruchhausen summoned the Grand Jury to the courtroom and, upon appellant's continued refusal to answer either of the two questions, found him guilty of contempt of court and imposed the sentences from which this appeal is taken.

The proceedings before Judge Bruchhausen were conducted under Rule 42(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, 18 U.S.C.A., which authorizes summary punishment for acts of contempt "committed in the actual presence of the court." The validity of such proceedings — in which the Grand Jury is brought into the courtroom and the witness is directed by the District Judge to answer its questions upon pain of contempt of court — has been recently reaffirmed by the United States Supreme Court. Brown v. United States, 359 U.S. 41, 79 S.Ct. 539, 3 L.Ed.2d 609; Levine v. United States, 362 U.S. 610, 80 S.Ct. 1038, 4 L.Ed.2d 989. We find no basis for sustaining Rinieri's claim that he was denied due process by the proceedings in the District Court.

Appellant had the assistance of counsel before he made his initial appearance before the Grand Jury. Throughout the proceedings in the District Court the appellant was represented by counsel, who indeed told the Court that he had advised Rinieri to answer both questions. The District Judge carefully explained to Rinieri that he had an obligation to...