Court Opinion

ID: 9467662
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:53:25.323645+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:27.229572
License: Public Domain

DONALD RUSSELL, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
The majority concludes the conviction must be reversed because of the admission in evidence of certain exhibits prepared by a postal inspector, reconstructing the records of receipts and bank deposits of all the employees at the postal substation for the five relevant days. When this exhibit was offered the defendant began an objection but the District Court, without making a ruling at the time, stated the defendant would have an opportunity to cross-examine. In effect, the District Court was following the practice suggested by Rule 705, Federal Rules of Evidence. This Rule contemplates that an expert witness may give his opinion, which, assuming the witness was an expert witness, will be permitted, reserving a final ruling on the admissibility of the opinion after cross-examination during which the defendant would be expected to develop his line of objection to the opinion or, as in this case, an opinion expressed in the form of an exhibit. This was what the District Court did in this case, assuming as it did that the witness was an expert witness within the contemplation of an expert witness as defined in Rule 702 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. It is, of course, true that this procedure permits the opinion to be before the jury, even though it might later be ruled, after cross-examination, that the opinion of the expert was for some reason inadmissible. This was understood by the drafters of the Rule but, as they stated in their Advisory Notes, it was not regarded as a reason for not following the procedure contemplated under the new Rule. See Saltzburg & Redden, Federal Rules of Evidence Manual, 442 (2d Ed.1977).
The critical question, as I view it then, was whether the postal inspector qualified as an expert witness under Rule 702. That Rule, in defining expert witnesses, did not adopt any narrow or crabbed construction of the term, but included within its intendment any witness who, by training and experience, can, by his opinion, be helpful to the jury in resolving the issues. United States v. Johnson, (5th Cir. 1978) 575 F.2d 1347; United States v. Collins, (9th Cir. 1977) 559 F.2d 561; Soo Line R. Co. v. Fruehauf Corp., (8th Cir. 1977) 547 F.2d 1365. This witness met that test. He had prepared an opinion requiring special training in reconstructing bank records. That was sufficient to bring him within the definition of an expert witness. After qualifying as an expert witness, the postal inspector was entitled to give his opinion, which, in this case, was represented by the challenged exhibits, and this would be true even though in part his opinion may have been based on evidence which was not in evidence, provided only that the opinion is based on information normally relied on by an expert witness in reaching an opinion in such a case. The procedure used by the postal inspector in developing his exhibits, expressive of his opinion, accords with normal accounting practice in the context of this case. This is the procedure expressly authorized in Rule 703, Federal Rules of Evidence. United States v. Genser, (3d Cir. 1978) 582 F.2d 292; United States v. Golden, (9th Cir. 1976) 532 F.2d 1244; United States v. Morrison, (1st Cir. 1976) 531 F.2d 1089; cf., however, United States v. Brown, (5th Cir. 1977) 548 F.2d 1194. And this is particularly so when all the data on which the opinion was based, may be tested and inquired into on cross-examination. Scholz Homes, Inc. v. Wallace, (10th Cir. 1979) 590 F.2d 860.
Measured by these rules, the exhibits here were manifestly admissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence. They represented the ultimate opinion of an expert who, as we have said, demonstrated by his training and experience his ability to recon-*732die bank accounts. His use of inquiries of the clerks themselves to verify his reconciliation is an appropriate and recognized procedure. The District Court thus acted properly in receiving the exhibits in evidence, deferring any final action until the defendant had had an opportunity to cross-examine. If the defendant wished to review with the expert witness the various checks or any of them, that opportunity was available to him on cross-examination. It would have been an easy matter for the defendant to have had the witness go through each check received by any clerk during the five days in question. The fact that he did not pursue the subject in cross-examination is compelling evidence that he accepted the accuracy of the expert witness’ verification of the checks which had been included in the clerks’ deposits on the five critical days, and did not wish to cross-examine the witness on that point. Moreover, it must be remembered that all the clerks were witnesses, available for cross-examination by the defendant. The exhibits thus carried the clearest indicia of reliability and accuracy and were admissible in evidence. The defendant, in cross-examination, developed nothing that detracted in the slightest from a finding of such accuracy and reliability. The admission of the exhibits by the District Court was plainly authorized under the Federal Rules of Evidence, as identified above.
Since there was no error in the admission into evidence of the exhibits prepared by the postal inspector, the judgment of conviction in my opinion should be affirmed, and I accordingly dissent from the reversal of such conviction.