Court Opinion

ID: 9445980
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:42:58.645528+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:28.724422
License: Public Domain

EDGERTON, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
The defendant was convicted last April. In my opinion Jencks v. United States, 353 U.S. 657, 77 S.Ct. 1007, 1 L.Ed.2d 1103, decided in June, requires us to remand if not to reverse.
The government’s case turned entirely on Officer Scipio’s testimony. No one else testified that the defendant bought, sold, or possessed narcotics. If, but only if, the defendant could impeach this officer’s testimony, he could hope for acquittal.
A subpoena was served on the Chief of Police requiring him to produce “All statements and reports reduced to writing, whether signed or unsigned, of Private Rudolph Scipio, MPDC, relating to transactions on or about September 30, 1956 and on or about October 5, 1956, involved in this case * * The defendant was clearly entitled under Jencks to inspect these “relevant statements or reports in [the government’s] possession of government witnesses touching the subject matter of their testimony at the trial.” 353 U.S. 657, 672, 77 S.Ct. 1007. This subpoena was neither complied with nor quashed. The record does not appear to me to show that the defendant received the equivalent of the subpoenaed documents. At the trial, defendant’s counsel was shown some “notes” Officer Scipio had prepared. But it does not appear that these “notes” were as full as the subpoenaed documents. The record even implies the contrary.1 I think it follows that there should be a new trial unless the District Court, on remand, finds that all Officer Scipio’s existing statements or reports were shown to the *381defendant’s counsel. The defendant should not be required to show that they were not shown. An accused person cannot be expected to prove what is in a file that he has not seen.

. For example, when the officer was asked in cross-examination, “Now, after you made that purchase on September 30, did you make a written report of it?”, he replied, “Tes. That is the written report something similar to that one." (Emphasis added.)