Court Opinion

ID: 9455855
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:35:39.77712+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:45.806104
License: Public Domain

SWYGERT, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
I dissent from the holding of the majority that the district judge’s questioning of witness Taylor, and the inadmissible evidence of the defendant’s prior conviction adduced thereby, was not prejudicial. I have been unable to find another case holding that the erroneous admission of such evidence did not prejudice a criminal defendant. In fact, this circuit has always treated inadmissible evidence of other crimes in a jury trial as prejudicial. Thus, in United States v. Menk, 406 F.2d 124, 126 (7th Cir. 1968), this court held that “the admission of such evidence constituted error, and if this had been a jury trial we would be compelled to reverse. United States v. Reed, 376 F.2d 226, 228-229 (7th Cir. 1967); United States v. White, 355 F.2d 909, 910-911 (7th Cir. 1966).”
The majority in the instant case concludes “with fair assurance” that in its opinion the jury verdict was not “substantially swayed” by the knowledge of defendant’s prior conviction. This holding seems to impose a new and stricter standard on a defendant to show how concededly inadmissible evidence prejudiced a jury against him. Not only does the requirement that a jury must be “substantially swayed” impose an impossible burden on a defendant before a reviewing court, but it renders the rules of evidence impotent to protect the right of criminal defendants to a fair trial free from this most damaging kind of evidence.
The rule announced by the majority purports to be derived from Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 764-765, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 1247 (1946). The quotation extracted from that case loses the effect attributed to it by the majority when viewed in the context of the Supreme Court’s opinion. In Kotteakos the Court reversed a conviction for conspiracy to violate the National Housing Act and held that certain improperly admitted evidence was not harmless error and did prejudice the defendant. Prior to the quotation cited by the majority in the instant case, the Court stated:
[I]t is not the appellate court’s function to determine guilt or innocence. * * * Nor is it to speculate upon probable reconviction and decide *690according to how the speculation comes out. * * * Those judgments are exclusively for the jury.
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But this does not mean that the appellate court can escape altogether taking account of the outcome. To weigh the error’s effect against the entire setting of the record without relation to the verdict or judgment would be almost to work in a vacuum. * * * In criminal causes that outcome is conviction. This is different, or may be, from guilt in fact. It is guilt in law, established by the judgment of laymen. And the question is, not were they right in their judgment, regardless of the error or its effect upon the verdict. It is rather what effect the error had or reasonably may be taken to have had upon the jury’s decision. The crucial thing is the impact of the thing done wrong on the minds of other men, not on one’s own, in the total setting. * * *
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If, when all is said and done, the conviction is sure that the error did not influence the jury, or had but very slight effect, the verdict and the judgment should stand. * * *
The quotation cited by the majority in the instant case then follows.
Kotteakos clearly does not stand for the majority’s position. In fact, it requires the reviewing court to be “sure that the error did not influence the jury, or had but very slight effect” before such error can be considered nonprejudicial. This standard differs radically from one which allows an appellate court to speculate on guilt or innocence and then conclude “with fair assurance” that a jury was not “substantially swayed” by improperly admitted evidence.
The majority seems convinced that the jury, on the facts presented to it, could have returned no verdict other than one of guilt. Defendant presented no defense and refused to cross-examine the witnesses for the prosecution. The testimony of the chief Government witness was, in my opinion, less than convincing, and the jury would not have been unreasonable had it chosen not to believe a juror who accepted bribe money, deposited it in her bank account, and then, months later, after voting to convict the man from whom she accepted the bribe money, told the Government of the bribe. However, it is this very type of speculation in which a reviewing court should not indulge. Kotteakos v. United States, supra, 328 U.S. at 763, 66 S.Ct. 1239.
Knowing that the defendant on trial before them had been previously convicted of another crime, we should presume that the jurors were at least partly influenced by that fact in rendering their verdict. This presumption compels reversal and entitles the defendant to a new trial.