United States v. Salerno

Salerno and others (defendants), charged with RICO violations, sought to introduce grand jury testimony from two concrete-firm owners who had denied participating in the racketeering ring, after those owners invoked their Fifth Amendment privilege at trial and refused to testify. The district court admitted the grand jury testimony under the former-testimony hearsay exception and convicted the defendants, but the court of appeals reversed, holding the exception's similar-motive requirement does not apply when the government obtained immunized grand jury testimony from a now-unavailable witness; the government sought review.