Opinion ID: 1475755
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Comments of the Court

Text: The trial in the district court required a month and was marked by several exchanges between court and defense counsel, generally in connection with the admission or rejection of testimony. Appellants assail remarks of the court upon these occasions asserting that they were severe in their criticism of the trial tactics of defense counsel and that the total effect of the remarks was to prejudice the rights of appellants because of their influence on the jury. This contention was the subject of a brief by amicus curiae. [3] Appellants argue that crimes of the utmost abandonment  murder and prison break  were bluntly given the jury directly, while indirectly, every unfortunate incident in the past lives of the defendants, whether amounting to a crime or not, was brutally insinuated to the triers of the facts.    Young and inexperienced counsel (and even incompetent counsel, if we believe what the court actually told the jury) were appointed for the defendants.    Certainly we may not, nor do we, demand a reversal upon the basis that the character per se of the crime charged inflamed the jury or because of the comparative ability and experience of the several counsel   . A reading of the entire transcript indicates that his [the trial judge] attitude, his demeanor and his activity and expressions in the conduct of this cause are little less than shocking to a sense of justice. The presiding judge in this case was an able and experienced jurist. His duty was to guide the course of a long and difficult trial during which he had to make immediate rulings on a large number of warmly contested issues. Some of the questions of defense counsel were regarded by him as time-consuming and wholly immaterial. The record clearly reveals that energetic and aggressive (and we think capable) defense attorneys did not yield gracefully to a great many of his rulings. Upon these occasions they couched their protests in exceedingly pungent, vigorous and even profane speech; the replies of the judge, in attempting to answer these protests, form the basis of appellants' contention that they prejudiced the defense in the minds of jurors. We have carefully examined the trial record and as a result we do not believe that these comments between court and defense counsel so misled and prejudiced jurors that they became partisans of the prosecution. We cannot abandon our faith in the capacity and desire of a Federal jury to avoid being mired in irrelevancies, and the record does not reveal that the jurors in the case lost or discarded their innate sense of fair play and were inspired to render a verdict not based entirely on the evidence admitted by the court. This conclusion is fortified and emphasized by the important fact that the court gave specific instructions to the effect that jurors must wholly disregard court rulings and comments during the trial; that because the court had admonished and reprimanded counsel in connection with the conduct of the trial, the jury should not draw any inferences from remarks or comments or rulings of the court on those occasions that the court was intending to convey to the jury in any manner whatsoever its view or opinion as to what the verdict should be  that (such) comments of the court were only pursuant to the power and duty of the court to supervise the trial and expedite it  that (any) admonitions or reprimands were matters only between the court and the attorneys and that they cannot and must not reflect in any manner upon the guilt or innocence of the defendants. Jurors were instructed to confine their deliberations to, and exclusively to rely upon, admitted testimony and exhibits, in reaching a verdict. The court, in excess of caution, added the further admonition to the jury that: It would be a travesty upon justice if any juror were to bring to bear upon the vital question of the guilt or the innocence of the defendants some matter involving the conduct or acts of any attorney in the cause. These unambiguous and eminently fair instructions reach straight down into the very heart of the problem posed by appellants' contentions. If any member (or members) of the jury had felt the slightest uncertainty as to the possible attitude of the judge, these blunt admonitions were sufficient to lay any doubt at rest. (There was also the usual caution about argument of counsel to the jury in connection with which it may be noted that counsel for Thompson complains that it was prejudicial error for Government counsel to demand of the jury that it impose the death penalty rather than merely to ask for it. This claim has no merit. That was the penalty demanded in the indictment.) We think that these instructions effectively represented the conscientious effort of a judge to make plain to jurors that justice, decency and fair play would not and could not prevail in the trial unless they wholly disregarded colloquy between court and counsel over procedural matters. They emphasized to the jury that the judge did not want any court ruling to be regarded as indicating his personal convictions as to the guilt or innocence of either appellant. Certain it is that the court made a sincere effort to insure jury consideration of only relevant matters admitted for their consideration, and to prevent the possibility of an unfair verdict by the jury. Counsel for appellants made no request for mistrial as a result of the matters discussed above. The views we expressed in Meeks v. United States, 9 Cir., 163 F.2d 598, do not militate against this conclusion. Appellants present numerous other assignments and claims of error, asserting them to present such a showing of errors as to justify and require a reversal. Some of these claims of error pervade every area of the trial. These contentions will be referred to later. At this point we indicate the general nature of the evidence upon which the jury found a verdict of guilty against appellants. The transcript on appeal contains nearly 2200 pages and the evidence must be summarized.