The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit ruled that Alabama’s grand jury secrecy law is constitutional, drawing a distinction between the instant case and the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1990 decision in Butterworth v. Smith.

In Butterworth, the nation’s high court declared that Florida’s grand jury secrecy law was unconstitutional because it prohibited grand jury witnesses from disclosing information they learned prior to testifying.