Oral Statements
An oral statement which has never been transcribed in any fashion is not a “statement" within the meaning of the Act. Moreover the Act does not require law enforcement officers to make any record of an interview, nor to submit interview notes to the witness for approval so as to generate a statement which is producible under the Act. Notes that are signed, adopted or approved by the witness are generally subject to subpoena. Those that are not cannot be ordered to be produced. Notes that are only of one word references and short phrases are not producible. Investigator’s notes made from memory several days after interviewing a witness are not “verbatim” under the meaning of the Act, and hence not subject to subpoena.
On police officer’s notes on statements of another were not “statements” within the meaning of the Jencks Act where there was no evidence that such notes were ever approved by the officer or that his words were recorded verbatim.
Records of surveillance activities are not Jencks Act statements even though they have been transmitted by one government agent to another.
Notes produced during the course of surveillance need not be preserved or produced.
A statement by a government witness before a grand jury is producible under Jencks Act to the extent that it relates to the subject matter of the trial testimony.
Such a statement is reproducible even though it has not been transcribed.
Read more about this topic: Jencks Act
Famous quotes containing the words oral and/or statements:
“We have seen over and over that white male historians in general have tended to dismiss any history they didn’t themselves write, on the grounds that it is unserious, unscholarly, a fad, too “political,” “merely” oral and thus unreliable.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)
“If we do take statements to be the primary bearers of truth, there seems to be a very simple answer to the question, what is it for them to be true: for a statement to be true is for things to be as they are stated to be.”
—J.L. (John Langshaw)