Opinion ID: 347528
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: misuse of the cia

Text: 595 The remainder of this opinion must deal with a mystery. All my colleagues normally are very quick to notice plain error, particularly in courts' instructions. So, one must wonder why they insist here upon affirming a conviction on just one count that involves obvious plain error in the court's instructions: the error being that the trial court instructed the jury they could return a guilty verdict on the offense charged in Count 2 solely on the ground the defendants committed an offense not charged in Count 2 of the indictment returned by the Grand Jury. 596 It is relatively unimportant to the appellants whether the convictions on Count 2 are upheld because the sentences are concurrent and the conviction on Count 1 involves a consummated conspiracy to obstruct justice and to defraud the government agencies. Thus, for this court to act appropriately on the error would not involve any lesser sentence or in any way lessen the nature of the convictions. But it is of the gravest moment what my colleagues do to the law because that will be applied to future cases. We should not confound the law on indictments in this circuit. We are not writing law just for this case alone. Our error will come back to plague us in future cases and the public will eventually suffer.