Opinion ID: 1474108
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 9

Heading: Crime Proved Within Indictment and Statute.

Text: It is argued that the crime tried was not that charged in the indictment, nor was it an offense under the Statute. Defendant makes the vivid statement that he was tried for being a propagandist. Stating the case this way makes an appeal, of course, to all our people who relish and support our civil liberties. Defendant, however, was tried for (and his brief as well as many parts of the record show that he was well aware of it) willfully omitting to state material facts in his three supplemental registrations. More particularly he failed to reveal fully what his political work was. He said that he was an author and journalist. That is, to be true, a small part of the truth. But he was much more than that. It may be unfortunate that a part of the more he was, was a propagandist, but such was the case. The Government had to show, inter alia, that he was a propagandist in order to prove a part of his work which he willfully omitted to disclose. So naturally there is talk of progaganda in the case, but defendant was not tried for being a propagandist. He was tried for failing to disclose some of his propagandistic work. The error of defendant's argument can be readily seen if we state a suppositions case. If this country were making an extensive manpower survey and one of the questions sent to citizens was, state all professions, trades, and businesses in which you have ability and skill, and if the Act made the failure to make a full disclosure a crime, and if our hypothetical registrant put down author and psychology teacher, and if later it was learned that he was no mean chemist, would it be said that the subsequent prosecution tried him for being a chemist? In this connection defendant states in his reply brief in italics: Therefore, this case on appeal must be limited to the alleged failure to reply properly to paragraphs 11 of these three supplemental registration statements and to them alone. The Government's brief fails to make this clear. It confuses and beclouds the issue as it was beclouded in the trial court. If the Government's brief here beclouds the issue as it was beclouded in the trial court, then it was not beclouded there. We have read all the record brought to us in defendant's Appendix and we have read liberally from a copy of the original transcript. We believe that the issues were kept quite clear considering the length of the trial and the amount of the evidence necessarily taken. If anything the Government beclouded the issue less than defendant.