Court Opinion

ID: 9453686
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:20:54.301069+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:45.815953
License: Public Domain

RYAN, District Judge
(concurring in part; dissenting in part):
I concur in the conclusion that appellants Cooper and Lacey were not prejudiced by the denial of severance and separate trial. I agree that their convictions should be affirmed.
I dissent from the conclusion reached setting aside the convictions of appellants Branker, Lopez, Moore and Ross. The convictions of all appellants should be affirmed. Guilt was established beyond doubt as to all the counts on which the jury returned verdicts of guilty. I find that no prejudice resulted to any appellant from the joint trial which was had. I find no basis in the record for a conclusion as to these four appellants different from that reached as to appellants Cooper and Lacey.
The Court notes that “counsel for the government must surely have known in advance of trial that the chances of proving the conspiracy charged in the indictment were very slim,” and the exercise of “good judgment” should have led the Government to have moved prior to trial to dismiss Count 1 of the indictment ; with this, I agree. I do not agree, however, with the further, statement that * * the conspiracy count provided the only justification for the join-der of the eight defendants.”
It is plain that the central roles of the conspiracy, operating within the office of the Internal Revenue Service, were played by Cooper, Neely and Lacey but, as the activities of these three expanded to embrace the returns of Moore, Branker, Lopez and the returns, handled for Ross, each one of these four became willing and active collaborators in so far as the respective returns in which they were interested were involved. The concise résumé of the evidence in the prevailing opinion details how in turn each one of them joined with the Cooper-Neely-Laeey combination as it undertook further to swindle the Government.
The Court apparently finds prejudice per se with respect to four of the defendants in the fact of the joint trial. The prejudice is said to flow from the length of the trial and the volume of testimony not relating to these four defendants, and from the jury’s lack of capacity to deal with abstract principles of law expounded by the trial judge. From this generalization, the Court seems to be satisfied that the risk of prejudice was so great that no amount of cautionary instructions could undo the harm.
While it is true that the four taxpayer defendants had very little connection among themselves, Neely was the common center to the fraudulent processing of all the returns. She was the “hub” about which all revolved. It would have been proper, therefore (even without the conspiracy count), to have joined all these four defendants in one indictment (Rule 8(a) and (b), F.R.Cr.P.).
I read nothing abstract for the jury to master in the trial judge’s instructions. They were precise and factual, and were separately stated as to each defendant.
I do not argue with the Court’s statement that, as the number of counts increases or as a trial record becomes complex, it may become more difficult for a juror to keep separate the various charges against the several defendants and the testimony as to each of them. But prejudice must be established as to each defendant, before the jury’s finding of guilt as to a particular defendant may be overturned on appeal.
Although Kotteakos, 328 U.S. 750, 66 S.Ct. 1239 speaks of the abstract right of defendants not to be tried en masse, the Court there looked at the particular circumstances of the case, at the evidence and at the erroneous charge, and concluded on the basis of all this that it was “highly probable that the error had substantial and injurious effect or influence in determining the jury’s verdict.” (p. 776, 66 S.Ct., p. 1253). The same cannot be said to be the case here. *891Aside from the volume of evidence, the record discloses that the proof against each of these four defendants was simple, direct and brief, resting as it did on Neely’s veracity and that of other Government witnesses- and on undisputed documents, as well as on defendants’ own admissions.
Much may be written of evils which come from many-count, multi-defendant indictments. They should be avoided whenever consistent with fairness to the defendant and to the Government. We must not, however, lose sight of the problems which come from requiring the repeated testimony of an accomplice and conspirator, who is called upon to testify at a succession of trials. Separate trials as of right for defendants jointly indicted, is no longer the rule. The prevailing opinion agrees it was not required as to two of the appellants — Cooper and Lacey; failure to grant it to the other appellants is not ground for reversal.