Opinion ID: 1487677
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: Intent to Betray.

Text: Finally, we come to appellant's argument relating to the intent to betray. This phrase does not appear in the constitutional or statutory definition of the crime, but is deduced from the concept of adherence to the enemy. Adherence to the enemy and an overt act giving aid and comfort to the enemy must both be present to make a treason under our law. Harboring disloyal sentiments is not enough. The mere expression of disloyal sentiments is not enough. There must be an overt act giving aid and comfort. Of course one may give aid and comfort to the enemy without an intent to betray, as where a citizen innocently assists an enemy agent not knowing or suspecting him to be such. Appellant's main point on this branch of the case is that the district judge made an erroneous distinction between intent and motive in his charge to the jury, as follows: In the law of treason, like the law of lesser crimes, every person is assumed to intend the natural consequences that he himself knows will result from his acts. And, in this case, if you find the defendant Chandler committed a voluntary act or acts which actually gave aid and comfort to the enemy and at that time and in his circumstances he knew, or with his knowledge had reason to know that the natural consequence of his act would be that aid and comfort would result to the enemy in the conduct of its war against the United States, you would be warranted in finding from the commission of the acts themselves that he intended to give aid and comfort to Germany, that he intended to adhere to the enemy, that he intended to strike at his own country and betray it and the fact that his motive might not have been to aid the enemy is no defense. In other words a person cannot do an act which he knows will give aid and comfort to the enemy and then attempt to disclaim criminal intent and knowledge by saying that one's motive was not to aid the enemy. In the case on trial, if you find that this defendant voluntarily performed an act or acts which he knew would give aid and comfort to a country or its citizens or agents known to him to be enemies of the United States and that he intended by so doing to assist the enemy or injure the United States and betray his own country, he cannot avoid the consequences of his act by asserting that his motive was not to aid the enemy but was a desire to save the United States and the world from a Jewish or Bolshevist menace, or to obey a call, or to change the personnel of our government, or a desire for financial gain. Motive cannot negative an intent to betray, if you find the defendant had such an intent. Where a person has an intent to bring about a result which the law seeks to prevent, his motive is immaterial. We think the above charge stated the law with sufficient accuracy. The argument is made that treason is a crime dependent upon the actor's motives; that the jury should have been told that the defendant could not be found to have had an intent to betray if they believed that he acted from patriotic motives upon the sincere conviction that what he did was for the best interests of the United States. Appellant is surely wrong in that contention. In the first place, consider the subtle task which would be imposed upon the jury by an inquiry of that kind. Appellant had become, as stated in his brief, fanatically anti-Semitic. What part did this factor play in his motivation? Man has a propensity for self-deceptive rationalization to justify to himself conduct which, deep down, proceeds from motives he would be reluctant to acknowledge. Did Chandler carefully inquire into the supposed facts upon which his intense views and opinions were based? In weighing the evidence, did he make a conscious effort to discount the distorting influence of his prejudices, before arriving at his conclusions? Whether Chandler was sincere in what he did, whether he had the heart of a patriot, is a matter that may be sifted out at the last Great Judgment Seat; but the law of treason is concerned with matters more immediate. Furthermore, if appellant's argument in this connection were sound, it would of course be applicable whatever might be the character of the overt acts of aid and comfort to the enemy. Suppose Chandler had obtained advance information of the Anglo-American plans for the invasion of North Africa and had passed the information on to the enemy. Would a treason prosecution fail if he could convince the jury that, in his fanatical and perhaps misguided way, he sincerely believed his country was on the wrong side of the war; that he sincerely believed his country's ultimate good would be served by an early withdrawal from the war; that he sincerely believed that the best, perhaps the only, way to accomplish this good end was to bring it about that the first major military operation of the United States should be a resounding fiasco, thereby stimulating such a revulsion among the American people that the perfidious administration would be forced to negotiate a peace? It is hardly necessary to state the answer to that question. When war breaks out, a citizen's obligation of allegiance puts definite limits upon his freedom to act on his private judgment. If he trafficks with enemy agents, knowing them to be such, and being aware of their hostile mission intentionally gives them aid in steps essential to the execution of that mission, he has adhered to the enemies of his country, giving them aid and comfort, within our definition of treason. He is guilty of treason, whatever his motive. As stated in Cramer v. United States, 325 U.S. at page 32, 65 S. Ct. at page 933, 89 L.Ed. 1441: It may be doubted whether it would be what the founders intended, or whether it would well serve any of the ends they cherished, to hold the treason offense available to punish only those who make their treacherous intentions more evident than may be done by rendering aid and comfort to an enemy. The twelve sample recordings of Chandler's Paul Revere broadcasts, to which we have made earlier reference, were introduced into evidence and played back to the jury on the issue whether Chandler had an intention to betray, and not in proof of the overt acts which were subject to the two-witness rule. The judge charged the jury that these recordings that were played back in court can only be considered on the question of intent and not on the issue of aid and comfort. They cannot supply any deficiency with respect to two-witness proof on any of the overt acts submitted as possible acts of treason in the event you find such a deficiency. Appellant asserts that it was prejudicial error to admit these recordings (though in connection with overt act 17 he complains that the content of that particular recording was not proven). In Cramer v. United States, 325 U.S. at page 31, 65 S.Ct. at page 933, 89 L.Ed. 1441, the Court said: What is designed in the mind of an accused never is susceptible of proof by direct testimony. If we were to hold that the disloyal and treacherous intention must be proved by the direct testimony of two witnesses, it would be to hold that it is never provable. It seems obvious that adherence to the enemy, in the sense of a disloyal state of mind, cannot be, and is not required to be, proved by deposition of two witnesses. On the issue of intent, the prosecution was entitled to have the jury consider all the evidence admissible under the ordinary sanctions of verity having a rational bearing on what was in Chandler's mind  which necessarily is a matter of inference. This includes what he did, and also what he said. The evidence was clearly admissible for the purpose stated. Haupt v. United States, supra, 330 U.S. at page 642, 67 S.Ct. at page 879, 91 L.Ed. 1145. We cannot say that the district court committed an abuse of discretion in admitting the evidence. On the evidence in its entirety, the jury could properly find that Chandler had an intent to betray the United States. It certainly appears that he wanted Germany to win the war, though it may be wondered just how this might be accomplished without the United States losing it. To one witness he remarked that an American victory in Europe would endanger Western civilization in Europe, whereas a German victory in Europe would in no way harm the United States, it wouldn't touch the United States. To another witness he stated that he thought it his mission to drift the United States out of the war. Of course Chandler knew that he was dealing with enemy agents. He knew the hostile mission of the German Short Wave Station, and voluntarily hired himself to the enemy with the purpose of contributing to the execution of that hostile mission. And he did so contribute. The trial judge correctly charged the jury as follows: The defendant Chandler, while domiciled in the German Reich, owed a qualified allegiance to it; he was obligated to obey its laws and he was equally amenable to punishment with citizens of that country if he did not do so. At the same time the defendant Chandler while residing in Germany during the period stated in the indictment, owed to his government full, complete, and true allegiance. The present case involves no problem of acts of aid and comfort performed under enemy duress. Chandler was not under enemy compulsion; upon the contrary it was he who sought employment with the Short Wave Station. Nor does the present case necessitate any detailed examination as to how far an American citizen, caught in an enemy country at the outbreak of war, may, in order to earn a living and without the stigma of treason, accept employment which in these days of total war might conceivably be of some aid in the enemy war effort. Here, as elsewhere in the law, there may be troublesome questions of degree. It is enough to say that in our opinion the present case falls clearly on the treasonable side of the line. Our conclusion on the whole case is that appellant had a full and fair trial in a court of competent jurisdiction, with every safeguard to which he was by law entitled; that the verdict of guilty was well warranted by the evidence; and that there was no error in the proceedings. The judgment is affirmed.