Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/373/179.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 21:11:54+00:00

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1. In the light of the entire record in this case, no reversible error was committed when the prosecutor asked the witnesses questions as to which their plea of privilege against self-incrimination was sustained. Pp. 185-190.
2. Even if the instruction on this subject was erroneous, it was not a plain error or defect "affecting substantial rights," within the meaning of Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 52 (b), and it did not constitute reversible error. Pp. 190-191.
John H. FitzGerald argued the cause and filed a brief for petitioner.
The petitioner was convicted by a jury on two counts of violating the federal wagering tax law, 4411 and 4412 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954, 26 U.S.C. 4411, 4412. His conviction was affirmed by the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, 301 F.2d 314. The petitioner contends that his conviction should have been reversed because at his trial the prosecutor was permitted to ask two witnesses incriminating questions concerning their relationship with the petitioner, with the knowledge that the witnesses would invoke their privilege against self-incrimination. We granted certiorari to resolve an asserted conflict with decisions in other circuits. 371 U.S. 858 .
"MR. FITZGERALD: Your Honor, it is my understanding that the United States Attorney is going to attempt to use the Kahns as witnesses.
"The COURT: They have pleaded guilty.
"MR. FITZGERALD: I know that, your Honor, but still I didn't waive any Constitutional privileges in their behalf.
"The COURT: I think the law is that they have no Constitutional privileges after they have pleaded.
"MR. FITZGERALD: Your Honor, further that they are under investigation by the Internal Revenue Department as far as their income taxes are concerned, and everything else.
After another recess, the Government resumed the presentation of its case by calling its other witnesses. Their testimony established the following case for the prosecution: The petitioner had been under surveillance by the government agents for one month. They had observed him following the same route twice a day, stopping for a few minutes in each of several variety and cigar stores. During the petitioner's afternoon round, the pockets in his coat became progressively more bulging, inferentially with material gathered in each of the stores. Petitioner returned home with the material. No persons were seen to enter his home between his arrival after the afternoon round and his departure the next morning for the morning round. Expert testimony was introduced showing that the petitioner's activities were consistent with those of a principal in a gambling operation. The afternoon visits during which his pockets became filled, it was testified, indicated a pick-up of the day's betting slips, and the morning visits would fit a pattern of "setting-up" the store owners to pay off the previous day's winning bets. The absence of any apparent contact with other persons after the petitioner's afternoon round would indicate that he himself was acting as banker for the enterprise, and was not passing the money on to another principal. The final ingredient of the Government's case was certain material found during a search of the petitioner's home. This consisted of "slips of number pool wagers," "daily double horse bet slips," and over $1,000 cash in bills of small denominations. The gambling slips were identified by experts as those normally held by the "bookie" rather than by the bettor.
One of the key issues which developed during this part of the case was the question of whether the places regularly visited by the petitioner were, in fact, known gambling establishments. The court sustained objections [373 U.S. 179, 184] by Mr. Fitzgerald to such testimony by government agents, on the ground that the agents could not testify to events observed when the petitioner was not present.
The Government then called Irving Kahn to the stand. No objection was made. Mr. Kahn testified voluntarily that he owned the store in question, and that he was acquainted with the petitioner. After being directed to answer by the court, he testified that he had dealings with the petitioner. And, when a second claim of privilege was overruled, he also testified that he had accepted wagers in his store. In the questioning which followed, the witness testified that the petitioner did come to his store "a couple of times a week," but denied that the petitioner came every day in the morning and afternoon.
In turning to the petitioner's argument that his conviction must be set aside because of the circumstances described, we emphasize at the outset what this case does not involve. No constitutional issues of any kind are presented. The petitioner does not claim any infringement of his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. 4 He does not contend that the Kahns were in any way prejudiced by their assertion of this constitutional privilege. 5 All that this case involves, in short, is a claim of evidentiary trial error.
We need not pass upon the correctness of the several lower court decisions upon which the petitioner relies, 8 for we think that even within the basic rationale of those [373 U.S. 179, 188] cases reversible error was not committed in this case. In the first place, the record does not support any inference of prosecutorial misconduct. It is true, of course, that Mr. Fitzgerald announced that the Kahns would invoke their testimonial privilege if questioned. But certainly the prosecutor need not accept at face value every asserted claim of privilege, no matter how frivolous. In this case, the prosecutor initially did not believe that the Kahns could properly invoke their privilege against self-incrimination, reasoning with some justification that their plea of guilty to the gambling charge would erase any testimonial privileges as to that conduct. His view of the law was supported by substantial authority, cf. Reina v. United States, 364 U.S. 507, 513 , and was in fact upheld by the trial judge. Although it was later ruled that the guilty plea did not render all of the Kahns' conduct immune from further prosecution, thus making testimony as to that conduct privileged, there remained an independent and quite proper reason to call the Kahns as witnesses. Both Mr. and Mrs. Kahn possessed nonprivileged information that could be used to corroborate the Government's case. They could, and did, testify that they knew the petitioner, that he did frequently visit their variety store, and that they themselves had engaged in accepting wagers. The Government had a right to put this evidence before the jury.
Moreover, the bulk of Mrs. Kahn's interrogation, including the only question involving privileged information, occurred before the court ruled that she had a limited testimonial privilege. Although Mr. Kahn was called to the stand somewhat later, there had developed, at that time, still another clearly permissible reason for calling him. The court's rulings during the questioning of the intervening witnesses had prevented the Government from introducing most of the evidence it had planned to use to show that the stores on the petitioner's daily [373 U.S. 179, 189] route were engaged in gambling. Mr. Kahn had pleaded guilty to accepting wagers, and under the District Court's prior ruling his testimony that he had accepted wagers in his store was clearly not privileged. He did so testify, after the court directed him to answer. In the course of eliciting this and other relevant testimony, the prosecutor asked only four questions held to be privileged.
There remains for consideration a question concerning the correctness of the court's instruction on the subject of the Kahns' refusals to testify. This issue was nowhere mentioned in the petition for certiorari in this Court, and under our rules it is not before us. 11 Even if it were, we could not find that the instruction amounted to reversible error on the facts of this case. No objection was ever made to this instruction, even though counsel for the petitioner did object to other aspects of the charge. Thus, we are not concerned with whether the instruction was right, but only whether, assuming it was wrong, it was a [373 U.S. 179, 191] plain error or defect "affecting substantial rights" under Rule 52 (b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. 12 What has been said concerning the very limited effect of any inferences arising from the Kahns' refusals to testify makes it clear that this brief passage in the charge could not have affected any substantial rights of the petitioner.
[ Footnote 1 ] "MR. FITZGERALD: Your Honor, may the record show that I object to the use of this witness. "The COURT: All right, it may be noted."
[ Footnote 2 ] "MR. FITZGERALD: Your Honor, may I stand beside her while she testifies, being her counsel? "The COURT: Well, I would rather have you not stand beside her, because that could impress the jury. "But ask the questions slowly, and you can take your objection each time. . . . . . "MR. FITZGERALD: Your Honor, if I should rise in my chair, may that be taken that she pleads the Fifth Amendment? "The COURT: Yes. Now, the question pending is what?"
[ Footnote 3 ] "Can you tell us what those dealings [the witness' dealings with the petitioner] were?" "And were you paid a commission on all the bets you took in your variety store?" "Who did you accept the bets for that you took in your variety store?" "Did you ever take bets for the defendant David Namet?"
[ Footnote 4 ] The petitioner did not take the stand. The court's instruction concerning this fact was as follows: ". . . you must not draw any inference from the fact that the defendant himself did not take the stand. He doesn't have to. He can sit mute and stand or fall upon the Government's case. Or he may take the stand as he wishes. But from the fact that he didn't take it, you should not draw any inference against him."
[ Footnote 5 ] Cf. Grunewald v. United States, 353 U.S. 391, 415 -424; Konigsberg v. State Bar, 353 U.S. 252 .
[ Footnote 6 ] See United States v. Tucker, 267 F.2d 212, 215; United States v. Gernie, 252 F.2d 664; United States v. Romero, 249 F.2d 371; United States v. Cioffi, 242 F.2d 473; United States v. Amadio, 215 F.2d 605; United States v. Hiss, 185 F.2d 822; Weinbaum v. United States, 184 F.2d 330; United States v. 5 Cases, etc., 179 F.2d 519. See generally 86 A. L. R. 2d Ann. 1443.
[ Footnote 7 ] See, e. g., United States v. Gernie, 252 F.2d 664 (C. A. 2d Cir.); Weinbaum v. United States, 184 F.2d 330 (C. A. 9th Cir.). See also United States v. Maloney, supra, at 538.
[ Footnote 8 ] See generally Grunewald v. United States, 353 U.S. 391, 415 -426; Stewart v. United States, 366 U.S. 1 .
[ Footnote 9 ] The Government has suggested that in appropriate circumstances the defendant may be entitled to request a preliminary screening of the witness' testimony, outside the hearing of the jury.
[ Footnote 10 ] Finding, as we do, that this case involves neither misconduct by the prosecution nor inferences of material importance, we need not pass upon the holding in United States v. Maloney, supra, that a failure to give proper curative instructions when such elements are present constitutes plain error.
[ Footnote 11 ] The issue was brought to this Court's attention in the Government's memorandum in reply to the petition. Rule 23, par. 1 (c) of the Supreme Court Rules provides, "Only the questions set forth in the petition or fairly comprised therein will be considered by the court."
[ Footnote 12 ] Rule 30 provides, in pertinent part: "No party may assign as error any portion of the charge or omission therefrom unless he objects thereto before the jury retires to consider its verdict, stating distinctly the matter to which he objects and the grounds of his objection. Opportunity shall be given to make the objection out of the hearing of the jury." Rule 52 provides: "(a) Harmless Error. Any error, defect, irregularity or variance which does not affect substantial rights shall be disregarded. "(b) Plain Error. Plain errors or defects affecting substantial rights may be noticed although they were not brought to the attention of the court."
I believe it was error for the trial court to permit the prosecuting attorney in the presence of the jury to ask questions which he well knew the witnesses would refuse to answer on the ground of self-incrimination. And I cannot conclude that this error was not prejudicial to the defendant. Certainly the prosecutor must have thought the refusals to answer would help the State's case; otherwise, he would not have asked the questions that he knew would not be answered. One need only glance at the questions set out in note 3 of the majority opinion to see that, as people ordinarily reason, the jury would have inferred that the witnesses refused to answer so that they would not have to admit that they had been engaged in violating the gambling laws with the defendant. Indeed, [373 U.S. 179, 192] a part of the court's charge, to which no exception was taken, left the jury free to infer this defendant's guilt from the refusal of the Kahns to answer the questions. * To my way of thinking, this is an unfair way of getting convictions and should not be condoned by the Court's treating these questions as minor lapses or by its speculation as to how good or bad the motives of the prosecutor were. Nor can I agree that the defendant either disregarded or acquiesced in the trial court's erroneously permitting the jury to be influenced by the witnesses' claim of privilege. Even before the witnesses were put on the stand by the prosecutor, defendant's counsel warned the court and the prosecutor that the privilege would be claimed, and later, when examination of the witnesses had begun, the court acknowledged not only the right to claim the Fifth Amendment's privilege under the circumstances but also the court's intention to sustain the claim if made. The court nevertheless allowed the Government to proceed with its examination, during which the jury heard the witnesses claim, and the court sustain, their privilege in refusing to answer several questions put to them. True, counsel for defendant later tried, as any good lawyer would, to turn this bad situation to his advantage by referring to it. But this took place after the trial court had permitted the poisonous questions to be asked over the original objections. This was not acquiescence in error. I would reverse.

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