United States v. Landau
Lawrence Landau, indicted for perjury related to alleged union payoffs, moved to dismiss the indictment. The court found that the grand jury prosecutor's questions, which formed the basis of the perjury charge, were "fundamentally ambiguous." The questions were phrased such that Landau could reasonably interpret them to refer to a time period preceding March 1983, while the government's key evidence was a tape recording from June 1983, a period not explicitly covered by the questioning. The court emphasized the prosecutor's duty to ask precise questions. Consequently, the motion was granted, and the indictment was dismissed.