Source: http://supreme.nolo.com/us/380/63/case.html
Timestamp: 2019-06-19 04:51:34
Document Index: 525102130

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 5601', '§ 5601', '§ 2', '§ 5601', '§ 3481', '§ 5601', '§ 2', '§ 8']

UNITED STATES V. GAINEY, 380 U. S. 63 - Volume 380 - 1965 - Full Text - US Supreme Court Center - USSC Cases - Nolo
US Supreme Court Center > Volume 380 > UNITED STATES V. GAINEY, 380 U. S. 63 (1965) > Full Text
(possession, custody or control of a set up, unregistered still and distilling apparatus) and 26 U.S.C. § 5601(a)(4) (carrying on "the business of a distiller or rectifier without having given bond as required by law"). [Footnote 1] In the course of his instructions, the trial judge informed the jury of two statutory provisions which authorize a jury to infer guilt of the substantive offenses from the fact of a defendant's unexplained presence at the site of an illegal still. [Footnote 2] The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
reversed the convictions on the ground that these statutory inferences are unconstitutional, [Footnote 3] because it thought the connection between unexplained presence at an illegal still and the substantive offenses of "possession" and "carrying on" is insufficiently rational to satisfy the due process requirements formulated by this Court in Tot v. United States, 319 U. S. 463. We granted certiorari, sub nom. United States v. Barrett to review the exercise of the grave power of annulling an Act of Congress. 375 U.S. 962.
among the Circuits of the standards which should shape a trial judge's instructions to a jury in telling it what weight to accord the fact of a defendant's unexplained presence at an illegal still site. Long before 1958, the year the statutes were enacted, trial judges had been instructing juries that a defendant's presence at a still could be considered by them in determining whether the defendant had participated in carrying on the illegal operation. Barton v. United States, 267 F. 174, 175-176 (C.A.4th Cir.). Compare Wilson v. United States, 162 U. S. 613. The Fourth Circuit had endorsed such a charge. Barton v. United States, supra. In the Third and Fifth Circuits, the precedents were less clear. See Graceffo v. United States, 46 F.2d 852 (C.A.3d Cir.); Fowler v. United States, 234 F.2d 697, 699 (C.A.5th Cir.).
As the Court of Appeals correctly stated in this case, the constitutionality of the legislation depends upon the rationality of the connection "between the facts proved and the ultimate fact presumed." Tot v. United States,
319 U. S. 463, 319 U. S. 466. The process of making the determination of rationality is, by its nature, highly empirical, and, in matters not within specialized judicial competence or completely commonplace, significant weight should be accorded the capacity of Congress to amass the stuff of actual experience and cull conclusions from it. As the record in the Circuits shows, courts have differed in assessing the weight to be placed upon the fact of the defendant's unexplained presence at a still. See United States v. Freeman, 286 F.2d 262 (C.A.4th Cir.). Yet it is precisely when courts have been unable to agree as to the exact relevance of a frequently occurring fact in an atmosphere pregnant with illegality that Congress' resolution is appropriate.
The rationality of the inference provided by § 5601(b)(2) must be viewed in the context of the broad substantive offense it supports. Section 5601(a)(4) proscribes "carrying on" the enterprise of illegal distillation -- an offense which is one of the most comprehensive of the criminal statutes designed to stop the production and sale of untaxed liquor. See Vukich v. United States, 28 F.2d 666, 669 (C.A.9th Cir.). Those who aid and abet the enterpriser come within the statute's reach by virtue of 18 U.S.C. § 2 (1958 ed.). United States v. Giuliano, 263 F.2d 582 (C.A.3d Cir.). Suppliers, haulers, and a host of other functionaries have been convicted under the statute. See United States v. Pritchard, 55 F.Supp. 201 (D.C.W.D.S.C.), aff'd, 145 F.2d 240 (C.A.4th Cir.). Congress was undoubtedly aware that manufacturers of illegal liquor are notorious for the deftness with which they locate arcane spots for plying their trade. Legislative recognition of the implications of seclusion only confirms what the folklore teaches -- that strangers to the illegal business rarely penetrate the curtain of
secrecy. [Footnote 6] We therefore hold that § 5601(b)(2) satisfies the test of Tot v. United States, supra.
doubt." Holland v. United States, 348 U. S. 121, 348 U. S. 139. In this case, the trial judge instructed the jury as follows:
(Emphasis supplied.) The jury was thus specifically told that the statutory inference was not conclusive. "Presence" was one circumstance to be considered among many. Even if it found that the defendant had been present at the still, and that his presence remained unexplained, the jury could nonetheless acquit him if it found that the Government had not proved his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Holland v. United States, supra. In the absence of the statute, such an instruction to the jury would surely have been permissible. Cf. Wilson v. United States, supra. Furthermore, in the context of the instructions as a whole, we do not consider that the single phrase unless the defendant by the evidence in the case and by proven facts and circumstances explains such presence to the satisfaction of the jury" can be fairly understood as a comment on the petitioner's failure to
testify. [Footnote 7] Cf. Bruno v. United States, 308 U. S. 287. The judge's overall reference was carefully directed to the evidence as a whole, with neither allusion nor innuendo based on the defendant's decision not to take the stand.
In my view, the acute danger in the statute as construed and applied lurks in its provision that the jury may draw the inference in question "unless the defendant explains such presence to the satisfaction of the jury. . . ." (Emphasis supplied.) If this meant that the judge should instruct that the inference may be drawn unless the defendant himself becomes a witness and personally
Just as it is improper for counsel to argue from the defendant's silence, so is it improper for the trial judge to call attention to the fact of defendant's silence. Indeed, under 18 U.S.C. § 3481, the defendant is entitled as a matter of right to have the trial judge expressly tell the jury that it must not attach any importance to the defendant's failure to testify; or, if the defendant sees fit, he may choose to have no mention made of his silence by anyone. Bruno v. United States, 308 U. S. 287.
Respondent Gainey was tried and convicted of possession of an unregistered still [Footnote 2/1] and of carrying on the
business of a distiller without having given bond [Footnote 2/2] in violation of a federal statute. Other provisions of the statute, [Footnote 2/3] entitled "Presumptions," declare that presence at the site of such a distillery
The provisions in question both say unqualifiedly that "presence of the defendant shall be deemed sufficient evidence to authorize conviction" unless the defendant explains his presence. The Court holds that this statutory command in § 5601(b)(2) is valid, [Footnote 2/4] but then, for some reason, adds that judges are free to ignore it or, after telling juries that they may rely on it, are free to set aside the verdicts of those juries which do. In other words, under the Court's holding, the judge is left free to take the extraordinary course of following a valid statute or not, as he chooses. Judges are not usually given such unlimited discretion to disregard valid statutes. And as the Court indicates elsewhere in its opinion, it was to prevent judges from setting aside jury verdicts based on presence alone that Congress passed this statute in the first place. Besides being almost self-contradictory, it amounts to an emasculation of
It has always been recognized that the guaranty of trial by jury in criminal cases means that the jury is to be the factfinder. This is the only way in which a jury can perform its basic constitutional function of determining the guilt or innocence of a defendant. See, e.g., United States ex rel. Toth v. Quarles, 350 U. S. 11, 350 U. S. 15-19; Reid v. Covert, 354 U. S. 1, 354 U. S. 5-10 (opinion announcing judgment). And, of course, this constitutionally established power of a jury to determine guilt or innocence of a defendant charged with crime cannot be taken away by Congress, directly or indirectly, in whole or in part. Obviously, a necessary part of this power, vested by the Constitution in juries (or in judges when juries are waived), is the exclusive right to decide whether evidence presented at trial is sufficient to convict. I think it flaunts the constitutional power of courts and juries for Congress to tell them what "shall be deemed sufficient evidence to authorize conviction." And if Congress could not thus directly encroach upon the judge's or jury's exclusive right to declare what evidence is sufficient to prove the facts necessary for conviction, it should not be allowed to do so merely by labeling its encroachment a "presumption." Neither Tot v. United States, 319 U. S. 463, relied
on by the Court as supporting this presumption, nor any case cited in Tot approved such an encroachment on the power of judges or juries. In fact, so far as I can tell, the problem of whether Congress can so restrict the power of court and jury in a criminal case in a federal court has never been squarely presented to or considered by this Court, perhaps because challenges to presumptions have arisen in many crucially different contexts, but nevertheless have generally failed to distinguish between presumptions used in different ways, treating them as if they are either all valid or all invalid, regardless of the rights on which their use may impinge. Because the Court also fails to differentiate among the different circumstances in which presumptions may be utilized and the different consequences which will follow, I feel it necessary to say a few words on that subject before considering specifically the validity of the use of these presumptions in the light of the circumstances and consequences of their use.
In judging the constitutionality of legislatively created presumptions, this Court has evolved an initial criterion which applies alike to all kinds of presumptions: that, before a presumption may be relied on, there must be a rational connection between the facts inferred and the facts which have been proved by competent evidence, that is, the facts proved must be evidence which is relevant, tending to prove (though not necessarily conclusively) the existence of the fact presumed. And courts have undoubtedly shown an inclination to be less strict about the logical strength of presumptive inferences they will permit in civil cases than about those which affect the trial of crimes. The stricter scrutiny in the latter situation follows from the fact that the burden of proof in a civil lawsuit is ordinarily merely a preponderance of the evidence, while, in a criminal case, where a man's life, liberty, or property is at stake, the prosecution must prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. See Morrison v. California, 291 U. S. 82; 291 U. S. 96-97. The case of Bailey v. Alabama, 219 U. S. 219, is a good illustration of this principle. There, Bailey was accused of violating an Alabama statute which made it a crime to fail to perform personal services after obtaining money by contracting to perform them, with an intent to defraud the employer. The statute also provided that refusal or failure to perform the services, or to refund money paid for them, without just cause, constituted "prima facie evidence" (i.e., gave rise to a presumption) of the intent to injure or defraud. This Court, after calling attention to prior cases dealing with the requirement of rationality, passed over the test of rationality and held the statute invalid on another ground. Looking beyond the rational relationship doctrine, the Court held that the use of this presumption by Alabama against a man accused of crime would amount to a violation of the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids "involuntary
servitude, except as a punishment for crime." In so deciding, the Court made it crystal clear that rationality is only the first hurdle which a legislatively created presumption must clear -- that a presumption, even if rational, cannot be used to convict a man of crime if the effect of using the presumption is to deprive the accused of a constitutional right. In Bailey, the constitutional right was given by the Thirteenth Amendment. In the case before us, the accused, in my judgment, has been denied his right to the kind of trial by jury guaranteed by Art. III, § 2, and the Sixth Amendment, as well as to due process of law and freedom from self-incrimination guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment. And, of course, the principle announced in the Bailey case was not limited to rights guaranteed by the Thirteenth Amendment. The Court said in Bailey:
Thus, the Court held that presumptions, while often valid (and some of which, I think, like the presumption of death based on long unexplained absence, may perhaps be even salutary in effect), must not be allowed to stand where they abridge or deny a specific constitutional guarantee. It is one thing to rely on a presumption to justify conditional administration of the estate of a person absent without explanation for seven years, see Cunnius v. Reading School District, 198 U. S. 458; compare Scott v. McNeal, 154 U. S. 34; it would be quite another to use the presumption of death from seven years' absence to convict a man of murder. I do not think it can be denied that use of the statutory presumptions in the case before
a defendant, I could not agree that these statutory presumptions are constitutional. They declare mere presence at a still site, without more, to be sufficient evidence to convict of the crimes of carrying on a distillery business and possessing a still. [Footnote 2/5] While presence at a still is unquestionably a relevant circumstance to add to others to prove possession or operation of a still, I could not possibly agree that mere presence is sufficient, in and of itself, without any supporting evidence, to permit a finding that, beyond a reasonable doubt, the person present carried on a distillery business or possessed a still, or even aided and abetted in committing those crimes. Indeed, with respect to the crime of possession, as the Court concedes, we held squarely to the contrary in Bozza v. United States, 330 U. S. 160, quite properly, I think. In setting aside the Bozza conviction for possession of a still, which had been based on mere presence at a still, this Court was acting in accordance with the historic principle that
United States ex rel. Toth v. Quarles, 350 U. S. 11, 350 U. S. 19. This judicial responsibility to pass on the sufficiency of the evidence must be exercised in each case, no more to be controlled by a general congressional enactment than it could be by a special act directed to one case only. [Footnote 2/6] This protective function of the court is amply demonstrated in the case before us: while Gainey was originally indicted on four counts,
the trial judge directed a verdict of acquittal on one [Footnote 2/7] and the Court of Appeals ordered acquittal on another. [Footnote 2/8]
It indeed is true, as the Court suggests, that it was to make convictions possible on no more evidence than presence that the presumption statute here under consideration was passed. Undoubtedly a presumption which can be used to produce convictions without the necessity of proving a crucial element of the crime charged -- and a sometimes difficult-to-prove element at that [Footnote 2/9] -- is a boon to prosecutors and an incongruous snare for defendants in a country that claims to require proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. Quite accurately such a use of a presumption has been described as "First Aid to the District Attorney." [Footnote 2/10] Instead of supporting the constitutionality of such a use of statutory presumptions, however, I think this argument based on necessity and convenience points out its fatal defects. I suppose no one would deny that the Government's burden would also be made lighter if the defendant was not represented by counsel, compare Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U. S. 335,
or if the jury could receive and consider confessions extorted by torture, compare Brown v. Mississippi, 297 U. S. 278, or if evidence obtained from defendants through illegal searches and seizures could be used against them, compare Mapp v. Ohio, 367 U. S. 643, but this Court has not hesitated to strike down such encroachments on those constitutional rights. Yet here the Court sanctions a method less crude, but just as effective, to deny Gainey his constitutional right to a trial by jury. [Footnote 2/11]
I cannot subscribe to the idea that any one of the constitutional grants of power to Congress enumerated in Art. I, § 8, including the Necessary and Proper Clause, contains either an express or an implied power of Congress to instruct juries as to what evidence is sufficient to convict defendants in particular cases. [Footnote 2/12] Congress can
undoubtedly create crimes, but it cannot constitutionally try them. The Constitution specifically prohibits bills of attainder. Congress can declare certain conduct a crime, unless barred by some constitutional provision, but it must, if true to our Constitution of divided powers and the Fifth Amendment's command that cases be tried according to due process of law, leave the trial of those crimes to the courts, in which judges or juries can decide the facts on their own judgment without legislative constraint and judges can set aside conviction which they believe are not justified by the evidence. See Tot v. United States, 319 U. S. 463, 319 U. S. 473 (concurring opinion). "[I]t is not within the province of a legislature to declare an individual guilty or presumptively guilty of a crime." McFarland v. American Sugar Refining Co., 241 U. S. 79, 241 U. S. 86. See Manley v. Georgia, 279 U. S. 1. Yet, viewed realistically, that is what the presumption which the Court today approves does in this case. I think that the presumption which should govern instead in criminal trials in the courts of this country is the time-honored presumption of innocence accorded to all criminal defendants until they are proved guilty by competent evidence.
Nor can a power of Congress to detract from the constitutional power of juries and judges to decide what facts are enough to convict be implied because of the power of Congress to make procedural rules or rules of evidence. See Ex parte Fisk, 113 U. S. 713, 113 U. S. 720. It is not disputed that Congress has power to prescribe rules governing admissibility of evidence and purely procedural matters. The Congress unquestionably could declare the fact of presence to be admissible evidence, for certainly it is relevant when considered along with other circumstances. Yet this power to say what shall or shall not be admissible in no way empowers Congress to determine what facts, once admitted, suffice to prove guilt beyond a reasonable
doubt. [Footnote 2/13] And I certainly cannot join the Court when it says:
Besides impairing Gainey's right to trial by jury according to due process safeguards, the statutes in this case, I think, violated Gainey's constitutional rights in still another way. These statutory presumptions must tend, when incorporated into an instruction, as they were here, to influence the jury to reach an inference which the trier of fact might not otherwise have though justified, to push some jurors to convict who might not otherwise have done so. Cf. Pollock v. Williams, 322 U. S. 4, 322 U. S. 15. The undoubted practical effect of letting guilt rest on unexplained presence alone is to force a defendant to come forward and testify, however much he may think doing so may jeopardize his chances of acquittal, since, if he does not, he almost certainly destroys those chances. This is compulsion, which I think runs counter to the Fifth Amendment's purpose to forbid convictions on compelled testimony. The compulsion here is, of course, more subtle and less cruel physically than compulsion by torture, but it is nonetheless compulsion, and it is nonetheless effective. I am aware that this Court, in Yee Hem v. United States, 268 U. S. 178, 268 U. S. 185, held that use of a presumptive squeeze like this one did not amount to a form of compulsion forbidden by the Fifth Amendment. The Court's reasoning was contained in a single paragraph, the central argument of which was that, despite a presumption like this, a defendant is left "entirely free to testify or not as he chooses." That argument, it seems to me, would also justify admitting in evidence a confession
extorted by a policeman's pointing a gun at the head of an accused, on the theory that the man being threatened was entirely free to confess or not, as he chose. I think the holding in Yee Hem is completely out of harmony with the Fifth Amendment's prohibition against compulsory self-incrimination, and I would overrule it. See Feldman v. United States, 322 U. S. 487, 322 U. S. 494 (dissenting opinion); compare Leyra v. Denno, 347 U. S. 556. See also State v. Lapointe, 81 N.H. 227, 123 A. 692, quoted with approval in the opinion of the court below, 322 F.2d 292, 296 (C.A.5th Cir.).
"(4) Failure or refusal of distiller or rectifier to give bond."