Opinion ID: 1233313
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: instructions given and refused:

Text: Up to this point, we have accepted, in substance, the headings which the appellant has given to the divisions in his brief. Appellant's heading for division X, however, is, in effect, DENIAL OF DUE PROCESS. He reargues briefly the errors already urged with reference to the grand jury proceeding, and asserts that the accumulative effect of the many errors constitutes a denial of due process. Having found no prejudicial error in divisions I to IX, we are not impressed with their cumulative effect. We will, therefore, cover only the matters not heretofore urged. Appellant assigned error to instructions Nos. 2, 3, 14, and 16, but argues only as to Nos. 3 and 16. Appellant assigned errors to the failure to give his requested instructions Nos. 10, 14, and 38. It is urged that the trial court should not have given instruction No. 3, because it merely emphasized the most favorable aspects for the state  already adequately stated in instruction No. 2. Instruction No. 2 was the comprehensive statement of all of the elements of the offense which the state must prove before the jury could convict. Instruction No. 3 is a definition of the crime of grand larceny by embezzlement, substantially in the words of the statute. RCW 9.54.010(3); RCW 9.54.090(6). Under the facts of this case it was not error to instruct in the language of the statute. State v. Sedam (1955), 46 Wn. (2d) 725, 284 P. (2d) 292; State v. Bixby (1947), 27 Wn. (2d) 144, 168, 177 P. (2d) 689; State v. Verbon (1932), 167 Wash. 140, 8 P. (2d) 1083. Appellant points out no error in instruction No. 16 on presumption of innocence and reasonable doubt, but urges that his instruction No. 10 on that subject was preferable, particularly in view of the argument of the deputy prosecutor on the presumption of innocence. (The trial court had no way of knowing when the instructions were given what the deputy prosecutor's argument would be.) The trial court's instruction was a proper statement of the law, and seems preferable to us to the much longer and more argumentive instruction proposed by the appellant. It certainly was not error to refuse a requested instruction where the principle of law stated therein was adequately covered by the instruction given. State v. Myers (1959), 53 Wn. (2d) 446, 334 P. (2d) 536, and numerous cases therein cited. It is urged that, since the trial court gave instruction No. 3 (the statutory definition of grand larceny by embezzlement), it should have given appellant's proposed instruction No. 14 to the effect that the defendant could not be guilty unless there was a definite intent to take the proceeds [of the sale of the Cadillac] from the Western Conference of Teamsters and deprive it of the money. The element of intent was stated in instruction No. 2, and emphasized and re-emphasized in instructions Nos. 5, 7, and 9. The jury was more than adequately instructed on the necessity of intent, and the trial court did not err in refusing to give appellant's proposed instruction No. 14. State v. Myers, supra . Appellant's proposed instruction No. 38, after stating the presumption of innocence, said, This must especially be kept in mind when any person has received unfavorable nation-wide publicity in nonjudicial proceedings which have the tendency to be one-sided because the party involved has no opportunity to make any adequate defense. In his brief, appellant says, Finally, the failure of the court to grant appellant's instruction No. 38 ... was certainly error in view of the fact no other instruction of the court told the jury to disregard the unprecedented publicity. No authority is cited, and there is no argument beyond the statement quoted from the brief. One could not refer to this as a slanted instruction, because it is practically perpendicular. There was no evidence in the case to which the instruction applied. The matter of unprecedented publicity was, as we have seen, injected into the case by appellant's counsel in argument to the jury. The trial court properly refused to give such an instruction. State v. Hart (1946), 26 Wn. (2d) 776, 175 P. (2d) 944; State v. Powell (1927), 142 Wash. 463, 253 Pac. 645. The length of the record (2,400 pages), and the number and novelty of many of the issues raised on the appeal, has unduly delayed the determination of this nineteen hundred dollar grand-larceny-by-embezzlement case. We find ample evidence to sustain the verdict and no prejudicial error in the record. The judgment appealed from should be affirmed. WEAVER, C.J., MALLERY, and OTT, JJ., concur. DONWORTH, J. (dissenting) In my opinion, the majority, in upholding appellant's indictment, has reached a result which is directly contrary to the settled policy of this state as determined by our legislature with respect to the impaneling of grand juries. Therefore, I cannot agree with the majority holding that appellant was not entitled, under the laws of this state, to have a grand jury composed of impartial and unprejudiced jurors. In considering appellant's motion to quash the indictment, we must bear in mind that appellant was indicted by a grand jury impaneled in the state of Washington and not by a Federal grand jury or a grand jury of a state whose statutes differ from ours. However, the majority holds that the superior court need not inquire whether the prospective grand jurors entertain any prejudice against the person whose conduct the court, in its charge, directs them to investigate, and bases its holding upon decisions of the Federal courts whose grand juries need not be composed of impartial and unprejudiced jurors because no statute or rule of court so prescribes. To fully understand the very serious problem presented by the three assignments of error quoted below, it is necessary to consider certain material facts shown by the record, which are not referred to in the majority opinion, presumably because of its view that everything that happened prior to the trial of the case is immaterial. In order to properly consider the legal question which is presented, I consider it necessary to state these facts in some detail before coming to a discussion of the applicable statutes and decisions of this court. The assignments of error with which we are first concerned are as follows: 25. The court denied appellant's rights to a fair and impartial grand jury. 26. The court erred in prejudicing the grand jury against appellant by its charge. 28. The court erred in failing to set aside the indictment for misconduct of the prosecutor before the grand jury. In passing upon the merits of these assignments, we should have in mind the unique situation which existed during the three months immediately preceding the convening of the grand jury. The grand jury, which returned the indictment herein, was convened on May 20, 1957. Several months prior thereto, the Senate Select Committee on Improper Activities in the Labor-Management Field (commonly referred to as the Senate Rackets Investigating Committee) commenced an investigation of certain labor unions and their officers. Needless to say, these hearings were not of a judicial nature. Ordinary rules of evidence were not applicable, nor were the witnesses subject to cross-examination. The stated object of the committee hearing was to obtain information which would aid Congress in enacting legislation bearing upon labor-management relations. Most of the hearings were conducted in public and were widely reported by the various news media. During the period of approximately three months prior to the impanelment of the grand jury, appellant was the principal subject of charges of misconduct made in the course of the hearings. Because appellant was then, and since childhood had been, a resident of Seattle, and for the preceding thirty years had been a labor leader of national reputation, [2] this area was the focal point for the dissemination of the highly derogatory publicity concerning appellant which resulted from the committee hearings. The local press featured front-page headlines in large, heavy type, in which the more sensational excerpts from that day's testimony or other proceedings of the committee were flamboyantly displayed. The local radio and television stations carried the same material, and in several instances both media reported the hearings live from Washington, D.C. [3] On March 26, 1957, and again on the following day, appellant, accompanied by counsel, appeared as a witness before the committee. Upon the advice of counsel, appellant informed the committee that he would assert the privilege against self-incrimination guaranteed him by the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution because of the fact that he was currently being investigated for possible violations of Federal law. The committee posed questions to appellant which he refused to answer (on the advice of counsel) on the ground that an answer might tend to incriminate him. He did so a total of one hundred fifty times during the two days of his interrogation by the committee. On May 2, 1957, appellant was indicted in Tacoma by a Federal grand jury for alleged income-tax evasion. On May 3, 1957, there appeared on the first page of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer a statement to the effect that the prosecuting attorney had decided to name special prosecutors to assist him in conducting the grand jury proceedings. This article contained the following statement: The grand jury is to investigate possible misuse of Teamsters Union funds by international president Dave Beck ... On May 8, 1957, appellant was recalled to testify before the Senate Committee, where he was again subjected to a lengthy interrogation, during which appellant again invoked the Fifth Amendment, upon the advice of counsel, approximately sixty times. During the course of these proceedings, the committee chairman, its counsel, and some of its members, orally stated certain conclusions and expressed opinions regarding the conduct of appellant. These comments, which were extremely derogatory to appellant, were widely circulated by all news media throughout the United States, and particularly in the Seattle area. In these comments, appellant was characterized as a thief, and it was asserted that he was guilty of fraud and other illegal conduct with respect to his management of the affairs of the teamsters' union as its principal officer in the eleven western states, and later in his position as its international president. These conclusions and opinions (particularly those expressed by Senator McClellan, the chairman of the committee) were displayed by local newspapers on the front page in prominent headlines. The following are a few of the comments which were referred to in such headlines which appeared in Seattle newspapers: TEAMSTERS' CASH KEPT GOING TO BECK AFTER HE BECAME UNION PRESIDENT, SAYS PROBER. Seattle Times, March 23, 1957. BECK'S USE OF $85,000 MAY BE THEFT, SAYS McCLELLAN. Seattle Times, March 27, 1957. BECK GIVES `BLACK EYE' TO LABOR, SAYS SEN. McNAMARA. Seattle Times, March 27, 1957. SENATE PROBE LIFTS LID ON BECK BEER BUSINESS  USE OF UNION MONEY RELATED. Seattle Post-Intelligencer, May 9, 1957. Substantial portions of the committee proceedings relating to these charges were also reproduced in the course of news broadcasts on local radio and television stations. The amount, intensity, and derogatory nature of the publicity received by appellant during this period is without precedent in the state of Washington. A Seattle newspaper carried a news item reporting that the switchboard of a local radio station that had broadcast the committee proceedings on the preceding day was jammed with calls, and that the officials of the station characterized the response to the broadcast on the part of the public as astounding, and that such response was greater than that resulting from any other broadcast ever aired by them. The serious accusations made by United States senators in the committee hearings are generally regarded by laymen as being official charges (which appellant had refused to answer) [4] , and thus the impression was created among the general public that appellant had been found guilty of a crime. The natural effect of this publicity was that, in the eyes of the average citizen, the character of appellant had been thoroughly discredited in the Seattle area on or before May 20, 1957. In view of the circumstances shown by the undisputed facts stated in the affidavits in this case, I think it would be unrealistic to believe that a very substantial number of the citizens of the community had not adopted, consciously or unconsciously, an attitude of bias and prejudice toward appellant at the time the grand jury was convened. If ever there was a case which required the most stringent observance of every safeguard known to the law to protect a citizen against bias and prejudice, this was it. On July 30, 1957, appellant (who had been indicted on July 12th) filed a motion to allow him to publish and inspect a transcript of both the grand jury voir dire and the grand jury proceedings. Appellant filed an amended motion on September 16, 1957, supported by his counsel's affidavit, stating on information and belief that the grand jury was prejudiced and biased. On September 20, 1957, the trial court entered an order granting appellant the right to publish and inspect the open court proceedings of the grand jury ( i.e. the voir dire and the court's charge). On October 18, 1957, appellant filed, along with other pretrial motions not pertinent hereto, a motion to set aside and dismiss the indictment. This motion was accompanied by his counsel's affidavit, attached to which was a compilation of photostatic copies of newspaper and magazine articles (total 139 pages) showing the nature and extent of the adverse publicity concerning appellant. On the same day, appellant also filed a challenge to the grand jury upon the grounds ... that the court which impaneled said grand jury made no determination as to whether a state of mind existed on the part of any juror such as would render him unable to act impartially and without prejudice. All of these motions were argued before the superior court on November 4, 1957, and on November 7, 1957, the court entered an order denying both the motion to set aside and dismiss the indictment and the challenge to the grand jury, but directing that the testimony of Fred Verschueren, Jr., before the grand jury be transcribed, sealed, and retained in the case file, subject to disclosure only in the event of a conviction and subsequent appeal. The state's application to this court for a writ of prohibition to prevent the entry of this order was denied. In considering the three assignments of error referred to above, I shall discuss (1) the impanelment of the grand jury, (2) the charge given the grand jury, and (3) the alleged misconduct of the prosecuting officers in the examination of a witness before the grand jury.