Court Opinion

ID: 9650604
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:45:51.927723+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:24.276514
License: Public Domain

SOPER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
At a term of the District Court in October, 1937 John Goins and his wife were tried for the unlawful sale of narcotics to one Bill Millhorn in April, 1937 and were acquitted. In 1938 at the May Term of the Court, Goins was convicted of perjury in testifying at the former trial that he and his wife had not gone to Chicago with Millhorn in January, 1937 to ascertain the price at which morphine could be bought. A sentence of three and a half years in the penitentiary, together with a fine of $500, was imposed. The chief witness for the prosecution at both trials was Millhorn, a man of bad reputation for veracity according to the undisputed testimony, who was serving a term of three years in the penitentiary on a narcotic charge. Goins was thirty-four years of age, He conducted a restaurant, filling sta-. tion and tourist camp at Pennington Gap, Lee County, Virginia, and had lived within five miles of that point all his life. He bore a good reputation according to the testimony of men in established positions in the community who had known him for a long time.
The testimony of Millhorn at the perjury trial was supported by corroborating evidence sufficient, if believed by the jury, to justify a conviction. Corroboration of his testimony was needed not only because a jury would hardly convict a reputable citizen upon the unsupported testimony of a felon, but because the long established rule of law that prevails generally in federal and state courts forbids a conviction of perjury upon the testimony of a single witness. Unfortunately, at the very outset of the trial, the District Judge interrupted and corrected counsel for the defendant in the midst of his opening statement to the jury and announced in striking fashion that there was no such rule of law. The judge also refused an instruction embodying the rule which was offered on behalf of the defendant at the conclusion of the evidence so that from the beginning to the end of the trial the jury labored under a mistaken view of the rights of the defendant.
It is now said that this denial to the accused of the protection of the law wás of no moment because he could not have been hurt thereby. If such a conclusion is ever justifiable in a criminal case in an appellate court, it can only be when no possible doubt exists, for otherwise the court assumes the role of trier of facts and the constitutional right of the defendant to a jury trial is ignored. The evidence in the pending case must therefore be examined in the light most favorable to the convicted man.
Millhorn testified that he motored from Middlesboro, Kentucky, to Chicago with Goins and his wife, arriving before dark between 2 and 3 o’clock on a January afternoon in 1937, and went to an apartment hotel in Bitter Sweet Place; that Goins registered in his presence "but he perhaps did not register — he was not certain — because he expected to stay with a friend who lived in the hotel. The rest of the evening they did a little shopping, Goins and wife visiting a department store and buying some clothing while the witness re*152mained outside, and then they went to a restaurant and had dinner. The precise time that Goins registered was not stated but it is a reasonable inference from the testimony that the party reached the hotel before 7 P. M. Millhorn also testified that although the purpose of the trip was to learn the selling price of morphine in Chicago, and he had some talk about this matter with Goin’s wife' before leaving home, the subject was not mentioned to Goins himself at any time either before or during the trip; and the evidence does not show that any inquiries in regard to morphine were actually made.
Both Goins and his wife denied all of the testimony in regard to the journey and said that they did not leave home; and there was other testimony on behalf of the defendant tending to show that Goins was at home at a time when they were enroute to Chicago, according to Millhorn.
The clerk of the hotel identified a registration card dated January 13, 1937 bearing the name of John Goins and wife, indicating that they remained over night and checked out the next day. The clerk identified Goins as the man who signed the card. This testimony, if believed, was strong corroboration of Millhorn’s testimony; but there were weak spots in the clerk’s story. He did not go on duty until 7 P. M. of the day in question, after Goins had registered according to Millhorn; he saw Goins only once, and did not see him again between January 13, 1937 and the date, of the perjury trial on May 3, 1938; he first denied and later admitted that he was shown a picture of Goins by a government agent in Chicago in the early part of 1938; he did not recognize Millhorn at the trial or remember that he accompanied the Goins, although Millhorn, according to his testimony, was present when Goins signed the. registration card. Manifestly it was possible for the jury, charged with grave responsibility to the defendant, to doubt the accuracy of the witness’ memory.
A deputy marshal testified that the registration card was found by him when he went to Chicago with Millhorn after the first trial in October, 1937 for the purpose of locating the hotel; that in the presence of a former manager of the hotel in charge of the establishment in 1937, the card was found amongst a thousand others in a closet.
A handwriting expert who was shown the card and compared it with writings of the defendant, was of the opinion that Goins wrote his name on the card; but the examination was confined to a comparison of the writing on the card with "only two signatures of Goins; the witness „found the similarities sufficient to warrant his opinion and the dissimilarities only such as might be expected in writings made by the same witness under different circumstances; and he testified that he was regularly employed in the Federal Bureau of Investigation and had served as expert witness for the government in many cases. This testimony was relevant and important, but it represented merely the opinion of an expert which the jury was not obliged to accept or to regard as the expression of an unbiased witness.
It seems manifest that the jury may have been unable to accept the testimony of the clerk or of the deputy marshal or of the handwriting expert as sufficiently certain to justify a finding of guilt and yet, misled by the erroneous statement of the judge, may have based their verdict on the testimony of Millhorn alone. It is nevertheless insisted that the jury could not have accepted the testimony of Millhorn and rejected the evidence as to the registration card. Even if this is so, it does not justify approval of the course pursued in the trial court. Juries are not always moved by logic, as every lawyer knows, and yet their deliverances may be sustained by the appellate courts. We have ourselves applied the established rule that a verdict of guilty on one count of an indictment will not be set aside because it is inconsistent with a verdict of acquittal on another count rendered simultaneously by the same jury. Dunn v. United States, 284 U.S. 390, 52 S.Ct. 189, 76 L.Ed. 356, 80 A.L.R. 161; Steckler v. United States, 2 Cir., 7 F.2d 59; Belvin v. United States, 4 Cir., 12 F.2d 548; Massenberg v. United States, 4 Cir., 19 F.2d 62.
Moreover, acceptance of Millhorn’s testimony and rejection of the rest as insufficiently proved would not necessarily have involved inconsistency. The registration card could not prove itself but to be admitted in evidence must have been connected with the defendant. Millhorn was not questioned about the card and did not identify it; and the jury could reasonably have found the other testimony in regard to it to be without sufficient probative force to serve as a basis for a verdict of guilty. We should not dismiss this possibility with the assertion that the jury could not log*153ically believe the evidence of Millhorn and at the same time disbelieve the evidence as to the registration card. There was another alternative. The jury might have laid aside the evidence in respect to the card altogether without either accepting or rejecting it, because they had been erroneously given to understand that Millhorn’s evidence did not need corroboration. Hence the mistaken view of law under which the case was tried may very well have been prejudicial to the defense, and it is certain that counsel for the defendant was deprived of his undoubted right to contend that no one but Millhorn had sufficient knowledge of the facts and that his unsupported testimony was not enough.
Another error prejudicial to the defendant occurred in the course of the trial. The government was allowed to bolster up the testimony of Millhorn improperly by showing that when he went to Chicago after the first trial with the deputy marshal to locate the hotel, he told the marshal, before they found it, the approximate location of the building and how it would look inside. The purpose of the government of course was to support a discredited witness by the testimony of a reputable officer as to the witness’ prior consistent statements. An objection to this testimony was overruled, although, as the authorities clearly show, the testimony was inadmissible. While Millhorn stood contradicted and impeached, there were present none of the circumstances that would make prior consistent statements admissible for purpose of corroboration, such as the contention that the witness’ testimony was a fabrication of recent date or that he had a motive to testify falsely at the trial which did not exist at the time of the making of the statements. Ellicott v. Pearl, 10 Pet. 412, 438, 9 L.Ed. 475; Southern Pac. Co. v. Schuyler, 9 Cir., 135 F. 1015. See Dowdy v. United States, 4 Cir., 46 F. 2d 417, 424; 22 Cor.Jur. 230; 70 Cor.Jur. 1183; 28 R.C.L. 653; 2 Wigmore on Evidence, 2d Ed., §§ 1122-1129.
It is, however, said that no harm was done to the defendant in this respect because the testimony added nothing to Millliorn’s testimony on the stand. Such, however, was not the attitude of the prosecuting attorney at the trial when in the performance of his duties he was endeavoring to do all that he could to convince the jury of the defendant’s guilt. Then he not only produced the testimony of the deputy marshal and got it before the jury over objection, but at the very end of the government’s case he recalled the clerk of the court who had previously given formal evidence only, and had him testify also over objection that he had had a conversation with Millhorn in October, 1937, shortly after he had testified in the first case, and that Millhorn had then recalled the name of the hotel in Chicago. Thus the same effort was repeated and with the manifest belief that thereby the government’s case would be strengthened. On this point, therefore, the government’s mouth should now be closed; and if the active counsel in the case on both sides, who doubtless knew more about it than anybody else, were then both convinced that the proposed testimony, was prejudicial to the defendant, it should now be difficult to say that the testimony had no effect whatsoever upon the minds of the jury.
The views herein expressed with regard to both questions under consideration make it impossible to sustain the judgment of the District Court unless this court, invading the province of the jury, passes upon the weight and credibility of the testimony and deprives the defendant of his constitutional right to a jury trial.