Opinion ID: 315545
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Constitutionality of the punishment provision of 18

Text: 29 U.S.C. Sec. 2113(e). 30 All three defendants contend that Pope v. United States, 392 U.S. 651, 88 S.Ct. 2145, 20 L.Ed.2d 1317 (1968), rendered the punishment provision of Sec. 2113(e) wholly unconstitutional by invalidating the subsection's death penalty clause. 9 The short answer is that in Pope the Supreme Court specifically stated that the defendant, who had been sentenced to death, was to be resentenced. Had the Court deemed the nondeath portions of subsection (e) nonseparable and therefore invalid, such a disposition would have been improper. 31 Defendants argue further that if pruned to avoid constitutional offensiveness, subsection (e) must fall, because by setting no maximum term 10 it leaves too much power over sentencing in the trial court-power that should reside with Congress. We find no merit in this argument. While the punishment provision in subsection (e) as judicially trimmed may be unusual in its wording, it does not offend the Constitution or traditional notions of separation of powers. 32 Defendant Kendricks complains of the discrepancy between the life-plus-five sentence she received and the term imposed on one of her partners in crime, Crawford, who pleaded guilty. 11 Crawford's misdeeds may have been more atrocious than hers, but absent some statutory or constitutional infirmity, neither of which is present here, sentencing is within the discretion of the trial judge. 12 IV. SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE 33
34 Defendant McGhee insists that the evidence was insufficient to convict him on Counts I-III. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the Government, see Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 62 S.Ct. 457, 86 L. Ed. 680 (1942), we conclude that the jury was justified in finding him guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. According to the uncontradicted and largely unimpeached testimony, he was an active participant in the planning of the crime. He performed several acts to aid in putting the plan into effect, for example, placing a rifle in the putative get-away van, registering at a motel near the scene of the crime on behalf of all the robbers, and accompanying the robbers while the van was being hidden outside the town where the crime took place. He also accompanied them into town in a Cadillac, and consistent with the plan that he was to act as get-away driver, he took over the wheel of the Cadillac and drove at least twice around the block after the other robbers had disembarked. Finally, he was apprehended while heading out of town in a car with defendant Kendricks shortly after the robbery, under circumstances that would justify the inference that he was making for the cached get-away van. He falsified his identity upon being stopped and questioned and (inferably) lied about his destination and purpose. 35
36 Bunner, who waived his right to jury trial, raised the defense of insanity, and now contends that as a matter of law the evidence established a reasonable doubt as to his sanity at the time of the commission of the crime. The chief bulwarks of his argument are the testimony of his psychiatrist, Dr. Bullock, a document relating to his 13-month sojourn in a Florida mental hospital ending 30 months before the crime, and a document showing that the Social Security Administration had awarded him payments based on mental impairment. The government presented its own psychiatrist, Dr. Eardlay, who created a conflict in the evidence by testifying that in his opinion Bunner was sane. It was proper for the District Judge, as fact-finder, to resolve the conflict, 13 and we are not able to say that he erred. 37