Court Opinion

ID: 9475053
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 05:16:17.222538+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:44:29.360777
License: Public Domain

COHN, District Judge,
dissenting.
The question on remand is whether the prosecutor’s statements in rebuttal “undermine[d] the fundamental fairness of the trial and contribute[d] to a miscarriage of justice,” United States v. Young, 470 U.S. 1, 105 S.Ct. 1038, 1047, 84 L.Ed.2d 1 (1985), when viewed “against the entire record,” id. Put another way, was the “jury ... influenced to stray from its responsibility to be fair and unbiased” by the statement. Id., 105 S.Ct. at 1048. Since my review of the evidence at trial, as mar-shalled in the uncontradicted description in the government’s Brief On Behalf Of Plaintiff-Appellee filed on remand (see Appendix), satisfies me the answer to these questions is in the negative, I respectfully dissent. My view that the prosecutor’s wholly improper argument had no effect on the outcome of the trial is reinforced by the facts that the jury acquitted Robinson of two of the four charges against him and that we have no doubts as to the propriety of the conviction of his wife. Lastly, I am constrained to observe that the test required by the Supreme Court in the circumstances of improper prosecutorial argument is likely the same whether it is a disregard of ethical principles or a wrongful comment upon the exercise of a constitutional right. See Delaware v. Van Ars-dall, 39 Crim.L.Rep. (BNA) 3007 (U.S. Apr. 7, 1986).
*1138APPENDIX *
[I]n early 1979 [Robinson] leased a truck stop in Guthrie, Kentucky, and purchased a $31,000 fire insurance policy on a wrecker and the contents of the truck stop’s garage. On August 30, 1979, [Robinson] increased the insurance coverage on the garage contents from $31,000 to $50,000. Two days later, on September 1, 1979, there was an explosion and fire in the garage. [Robinson] subsequently submitted an $80,000 insurance claim for the loss of the wrecker and the contents of the garage and an adjoining office.
Earlier in 1979, [Robinson] told a man whom he had solicited to become a partner in the truck stop that if the business turned out to be unsuccessful, he had a large inventory and could burn it. [Robinson] was consistently delinquent on his rent, and by September 1979 his business had significantly deteriorated. According to a local police officer who had previously worked for him, [Robinson] abruptly removed his race car and personal tools from the garage two or three weeks prior to the fire.
The day after the fire [Robinson’s] insurance agent, Aaron Williams, inspected the burned-out areas. Williams observed that tools and equipment he had previously seen in the garage were missing, that [Robinson’s] insured wrecker which was usually parked in front of the truck stop had been destroyed in the fire, and that [Robinson’s] uninsured race car which was normally kept in the garage had not been damaged. Williams also observed that the office area of the garage did not contain the remains of a color television, an adding machine, or a copying machine that [Robinson] later claimed he had lost in the fire.
Shortly thereafter, investigators discovered that a “tremendous amount” of fire accelerant had been poured on the floor where the fire had started and that a desk in the office area contained no files or debris of any kind.
During the next several weeks, [Robinson] requested salesmen with whom he dealt to prepare false invoices showing that he had purchased an air compressor- and over $10,000 worth of tires so that he could submit them as part of his proof of loss to the insurance company.
Approximately a year later, on August 21, 1980, [Robinson’s] house in nearby Clarksville, Tennessee was heavily damaged by arson about an hour after [Robinson] had left the premises with a large U-Haul truck filled with most of his household furnishings. Firefighters and investigators inspected the premises shortly after the blaze had been extinguished. They discovered that a large, two-handled cooking pot containing gasoline had been left on a lit stove, that an electric fan had been left running near an air vent, and that “rapid rise” gasoline had been spread throughout the house. They also determined that the doors and windows were locked, that the house was sparsely furnished, and that there was nothing in most dresser drawers or in any of the closets, except for empty hangers and a few garments in one closet. The authorities later learned that the home security system had been turned off and disconnected from the electrical system pri- or to the blaze.
During the month preceding the fire at his home, [Robinson] had packed family belongings, moved household furnishings from his house, and held a yard sale that was attended by several neighbors. [Robinson] explained to one neighbor that he was moving his family to California, but he told another neighbor that they were going there for a visit. Two or three days before the fire [Robinson] began loading his household furnishings into a large U-Haul truck with the help of a 17-year-old neighbor, Christopher Edwards. Edwards also helped [Robinson] move older furniture and appliances from the garage into the house. The day before the fire Edwards's 11-year-old brother saw [Robinson] draining gasoline from his race car into a large, two-handle [sic] cooking pot. During the early *1139morning hours immediately before the fire, Edwards helped [Robinson] load the truck with clothing, beds, a grandfather clock, a dining room set, a master bedroom set, a microwave oven, and a double-door refrigerator-freezer filled with meat. Edwards remained with [Robinson] and his family until sometime after 3:00 a.m., when they were ready to leave for California. While Edwards and [Robinson’s] family waited outside, [Robinson] remained alone in the house for five to ten minutes. After [Robinson] left the house, he and his family departed in the U-Haul truck and an automobile, and Edwards went straight home, arriving there between 4:00 and 4:30 a.m. Less than an hour later, neighbors discovered that [Robinson’s] house was on fire.
Several weeks later [Robinson] contacted the company that insured his Clarksville house. He stated that his family had left Clarksville to vacation in California but that they had decided to remain there because of the fire. He provided the company with a list of property allegedly lost in the blaze. When he was interviewed by investigators the following month, he denied that he had set the fire to his Clarks-ville house or that he had removed clothing and most of the furnishings from the house. He explained that he had locked all the doors and checked that the stove and fans were off before leaving the house and that he had moved “some things” to California for his daughter who was attending college there. Subsequently, [Robinson] mailed the insurance company a proof of loss statement and a claim for $200,000, including a $106,500 personal property claim. Property that [Robinson] had removed from his Clarksville house and included in his insurance claim was later discovered by authorities in his California residence.
The evidence for the defense consisted of the testimony of two of [Robinson’s] children and a neighbor concerning the events surrounding the fires and the various items left in Tennessee or taken to California and of a business associate that [Robinson] had been current in his business dealings and that [Robinson] said he intended to return to Clarksville two weeks after going to California.

 Footnotes and citations to the record have been omitted.