Opinion ID: 1506485
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 7

Heading: The Gaffeney Interim Account and Promotion Expenses

Text: Gaffeney repeatedly took money out of the Bankers Company in most irregular ways and never accounted for any of it. White entered these withdrawals as capital expenses, his explanation being that he trusted what Gaffeney said about it. Perhaps so, but it was a very irregular method of business, and offered a convenient way to cover up these thefts which were actually taking place. It is true that all these instances, taken singly, do not prove beyond question that White knew that the statements which he prepared were padded with false entries; but logically the sum is often greater that the aggregate of the parts, and the cumulation of instances, each explicable only by extreme credulity or professional inexpertness, may have a probative force immensely greater than any one of them alone. White, upon his own showing, was being continually asked to put into his statements items which the jury might have found were not good accounting, and was continually accepting statements of Gaffeney which were on their face suspicious. We do not say that his guilt was demonstrated, but enough was proved to subject him to the hazard of a verdict; faced with the choice of finding him a knave or a fool, we cannot say that the jury was bound to acquit him; fair men might have had no compunction in refusing to believe that he was so credulous or so ill acquainted with his calling as a finding of innocence demanded. The judge's charge as to the jury's power to bring in separate verdicts was adequate; he told them that their verdict    should be as to each defendant separately and as to each of the nineteen counts. Your verdict should be guilty or not guilty as you may find. How they could have failed to understand that they might find each defendant separately guilty or not guilty we cannot understand. The judge's exclusion of the opinion of an expert accountant called by the defense to meet the testimony of Hynan, the prosecution's expert, is more serious. Hynan had said that in making up the financial statements White used poor accounting methods, or had made up his own statements in other ways, which came to the same thing. Obviously, answering testimony was vital to the defense; the denials of the accused are at best a feeble reed and the only effective answer which could here be made was the testimony of a fellow accountant. Nevertheless, as the matter came up, we think that White was not deprived of any substantial right. After the accountant had been qualified as an expert he was asked whether, based on what he had heard of White's testimony in court, and upon his examination of the financial statements, they had been set up according to recognized accounting principles. The judge sustained an objection to this, at first because the question was wholly immaterial. If he had adhered to that position we should have had no choice but to reverse the conviction; but he did not do so. When White's counsel said that he understood that one of the issues    is whether or not Mr. White followed accounting principles the judge at once assented, but added that the question had not been well framed, and that if the counsel wished to put a hypothetical question he might do so stating what facts that you think have been established. After further colloquy he added: You may put a hypothetical question, if you can frame one that is proper. The counsel answered that he could not do this and concluded that he would address himself to specific matters. He then put two questions asking the witness's opinion as to whether it was proper for an accountant to write up books which had not been posted to date; and the judge again declared that that inquiry was not relevant, in which again he was wrong. The counsel then made a third effort by asking whether it was proper for an accountant to rely upon statements of the officers of a company whose financial statement he was preparing. This time the judge declared that he would allow the question if it incorporated the testimony that you think has been established, and later suggested that the witness be withdrawn and that a proper hypothetical question be framed. The counsel declared that he would like to follow that helpful advice, and after some further irrelevant talk withdrew the witness. That was on Wednesday and although the evidence was not closed until Friday, White's counsel made no effort to prepare the hypothetical question. From all this it appears that the judge meant no more than to insist upon the conventional form of hypothetical question into which is incorporated by way of preamble all the evidence on which the opinion is formed. It is of course necessary that at some stage and in some way it shall appear that the witness is basing his opinion only upon evidence in the case, but the conventional form, however right in logic, is the worst way to accomplish that result; it is a custom more honored in the breach than in the observance, and its abuses have become so obstructive and nauseous that no remedy short of extirpation will suffice. Wigmore § 676. There was no reason why any of the questions in the case at bar should have been excluded; it was far more convenient to take the answers and leave to cross-examination the detection of anything not in the evidence on which the witness had relied. Indeed it is impossible in the case of the last two questions to see how they could have been helped by any preamble; they were complete in themselves. Nevertheless, the rulings did no more than impose a needlessly cumbersome burden upon the defense; they did not deprive it of any substantial right. Finally, the accused complains of four instances in which proper questions were ruled out, and of one instance when the judge made an unfair comment. The last rests upon a misapprehension of what he said; he was merely explaining the testimony of Hynan, the prosecution's witness. As to the questions, although all four should have been allowed, it would be absurd to treat the errors as ground for reversal. No judge in so extended a trial can avoid on occasion rulings that on reflection he will see to have been wrong; but, unless they cut off some really substantial aspect of the truth, or let in too distracting issues, they are not important. And in this connection we wish to suggest that the disposition to rule out evidence because it offends against some canon of the law of evidence is to be discouraged; admission seldom does any harm, while exclusion often proves extremely embarrassing in sustaining a judgment fundamentally just. Judgment affirmed.