Court Opinion

ID: 9453069
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:01:19.481748+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:29.555638
License: Public Domain

MOORE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
The majority concede that “The proof amply supported the verdicts of guilty.” Thus, in theory at least, the defendants were convicted by a jury of their peers upon ample proof — the accepted American system for meting out justice for the commission of crimes. Why then the reversal? It is because the majority decide that in appellate retrospect the trial game has not been played with the niceties which they prefer should have been observed during the contest. In my opinion, the result reached and the reasons here stated have the effect of giving judicial sanction to trial tactics -of skillful defense counsel — additions to the bag of legal tricks already possessed —which remove the trial of criminal cases further and further from the search for the truth (as proclaimed from the platform) and reduce it (in the arena where the contest is actually held) to an endeavor to strive for, and even create, reversible error. These tactics have been the “hallmark” of many a successful defense advocate for generations. Why we now bestow upon such tactics reversal status, I cannot understand.
In this specific situation, as gleaned from the pages of a printed record and from our own knowledge of the participants, which cannot and should not be erased so long as we are aware of personalities in our own circuit, for two and one-half weeks the jury, the judge, the prosecutor and defense counsel had more than an ample opportunity to measure the mannerisms and characteristics each of the other. First, the jury: observing the entire scene from its jury *608box, entrusted with the ultímate resolution of the facts based upon their individual conclusions and the impressions made (never to be revealed) by every happening in the courtroom. The judge: every judge has his own individual manner of conducting a trial and, of necessity, must have great leeway in so doing. Even appellate decisions cannot reduce the judicial personality to a common colorless denominator. In this particular case, the judge, as has been his wont during his tenure in office, followed the case closely and took an active part therein. However, whatever he did or said in the presence of the jury was undoubtedly weighed by the jury along with all other factors in evaluating his personality. And as long as the jury system endures, it is premised on their strict adherence to the admonition, here properly given in the charge, that: “You are not to construe that [questions by the judge] at all as indicating that the Judge has any ideas about who should prevail in this case at all. It is done for the purpose where the Court thinks it appropriate to make something clear, and that is all.” The prosecutor: it scarcely required characterization of the prosecutor as a “young boy” to reveal this fact to the jury. Judges may well take judicial notice of the fact that juries can distinguish between young and old. The majority stress the fact that “The court's remarks [youth and first criminal trial] were wholly unnecessary.” The majority then step (figuratively) into the jury box and conclude, with more assurance than I can muster, that “the obvious effect of such colloquies was to place the defense at a disadvantage in the eyes of the jury, as it cast the prosecutor in the role of a young neophyte David, contesting against a practiced Goliath.” I would doubt that even expert psychologists would say that the jury’s collective mind was so diverted from the ample proof relevant to guilt that this comment by the trial judge tipped the scales against the defendants. If a principle of law is to evolve that any case tried by a young man as his first criminal case calls for reversal, young prosecutors will indeed have difficulty breaking into the field. Furthermore, it must be remembered that David had certain assistance beyond the powers of his stripling body1 even as the prosecutor here had such assistance as the righteousness of the facts — at least in the eyes of the jury — afforded. The defense counsel : experienced, resourceful, rarely second-best in courtroom repartee, a Goliath not even stunned by the prosecutor David’s slingshot stone, capitalized well on his contretemps with the trial court— witness his success with the majority here who apparently believe that a trial judge’s efforts to restrain counsel from making jury speeches during questioning or while making an objection should be discouraged. Yet the practice varies widely: many a trial judge will not permit counsel any leeway whatsoever in their forensic attempts to reach the .jury by these means while others prefer, to have grounds stated.
The incident involving Frank Guglielmini’s former employment might well have been omitted, but to say that it “could well have been a factor in their [the jury’s] finding Guglielmini guilty” scarcely is consistent with the majority’s opinion of ample proof to sustain the conviction. If their conclusion had been that the facts establishing guilt were so weak or inconclusive that such testimony might have tilted the scale, the argument would have greater applicability — but their own conclusion is to the contrary.
This leaves as the only point of possible substance the “reasonable doubt” charge. Some day the courts may recognize the utter impossibility of conveying metaphysical concepts to a jury and approve a simple charge, if charge be needed at all, such as “reasonable doubt is a doubt based on reason.” Such simplicity, of course, might well be anathema to the Law — hence, clarity (or probably greater confusion) is supplied by such cliches as “not a whimsical doubt,” “not a capricious doubt,” “the kind of doubt a juror *609would have in his everyday affairs” and all the other valiant efforts trial judges make to accomplish the impossible. Appellate courts also take refuge in cliches in saying that reading the charge as a whole, the jury obtained a general idea of what they were supposed to do or, if they disagree with the jury, by holding that the jury was obviously misled. Even reading the portions of the charge quoted by the majority (and the charge as a whole), there can be no “reasonable doubt” that the jury obtained a fair idea of their responsibility — in fact, the “probability of innocence” comment may well have added to, rather than subtracted from, the prosecution’s burden.
However, in reading the charge as a whole, the emphasis placed by the trial judge on reasonable doubt was more than protective of appellants’ interests. First, the presumption of innocence “goes with the defendant from the beginning to the end of the trial and prevails until, if that happens, unless and until that presumption is overcome by evidence which satisfies you beyond a reasonable doubt as to the defendant’s guilt” and, further, “you don’t convict unless you believe that either one of these defendants on any count is guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” The judge then elaborated on “reasonable doubt” as is customary in practically all “reasonable doubt” charges, for example, “reasonable doubt does not mean speculative notions or possibilities resting upon mere conjecture, mere suspicion, mere guesswork, mere surmise, not arising or deducible from the proof or that want of proof”; it is “an honest, substantial misgiving generated by the evidence, or want of evidence” and then the court gave the rather standard admonition that their doubt should be based upon “an abiding conviction as you would be willing to act upon as to the most weighty and important affairs of your own life,” and that then [i. e., when free from reasonable doubt] and “only then” would the jury be justified in convicting. In my opinion, the charge conveyed the substance of reasonable doubt ds well as is humanly possible. The addition of the hundreds of synonyms to be found in Roget’s Thesaurus under “reasonable” and “doubt” would not have added to the definition which the trial judge was endeavoring to convey.
Finally, the reading of this 1,414-page record leads me to the conclusion that it would be quite presumptuous to hold that the jury came to its determination of guilt because it was “impressed with the trial judge’s partiality to one side * * *” Nor do I believe that appellate courts should speculate as to the basis for the jury’s conclusions and then act on the assumption that they know. If courts on appeal inject this unknown element into their decisions, then trial judges will have to become mere figureheads. They will participate in the trial at their peril. Knowing this, astute defense counsel will have still another avenue, along with possible reversible error can be found because that which succeeds here today should succeed in the future.
I would affirm.

. I. Samuel, ch. 17, 45-50.