Court Opinion

ID: 9451908
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:26:52.436251+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:58.232176
License: Public Domain

TUTTLE, Chief Judge
(dissenting):
With deference to the views of my colleagues, I respectfully dissent. Here we are dealing with a plea of guilty. Kolaski pleaded guilty to an indictment that when, on October 26,1964, he stated that he “had no employees and/or agents engaging in receiving wagers on his behalf for the period October 26, 1964 [the date of the affidavit] to June 30, 1965,” he did then and there know and believe that he did, in fact, have employees and/or agents “engaged in receiving wagers on his behalf and conducted in his wagering business at [several places] for the period of October 26, 1964 to June 30, 1965.”
The opinion of the court suggests that it would be literally impossible for Kola-ski to know that, on the day he said he didn’t have any employees so engaged for the period beginning on that date, he did, to the contrary, have them engaged. So far as this record shows, Kolaski may have had half a dozen employees engaged under a written contract covering a period antedating October 26, 1964, and extending beyond June, 1965. It is equally possible, and I suggest, more likely, that on the very day he signed the affidavit, there were people employed by him actually taking bets and conducting gambling operations in the various places alleged in the indictment. This, it seems perfectly plain to me, would amount to “Hav[ing] employees * * * engaged in receiving wagers in his behalf * * * for the period of October 26, 1964, to June 30, 1965.”
All we have here is a question of proof; not a question of invalid indictment. In other words, I think it clear that a verdict of guilty would be warranted even at a jury trial, as distinguished from a plea of guilty, if the proof showed that, on the very day that he swore he had no such employees engaged for the period beginning on that day, he did actually, in fact, have persons working for him in the gambling business.
I therefore believe the judgment of conviction should be affirmed, and I therefore respectfully dissent.