Court Opinion

ID: 9425370
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:32.32635+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:55.196458
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Brennan,
with whom Mr, Justice Marshall joins, dissenting.
Petitioner was charged in two counts of a six-count indictment with possession of United States Treasury *853checks stolen from the mails, knowing them to be stolen. The essential elements of such an offense are (1) that the defendant was in possession of the checks, (2) that the checks were stolen from the mails, and (3) that the defendant knew that the checks were stolen. The Government proved that petitioner had been in possession of the checks and that the checks had been stolen from the mails; and, in addition, the Government introduced some evidence intended to show that petitioner knew or should have known that the checks were stolen. But rather than leaving the jury to determine the element of “knowledge” on the basis of that evidence, the trial court instructed it that it was free to infer the essential element of “knowledge” from petitioner’s unexplained possession of the checks. In my view, that instruction violated the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment because it permitted the jury to convict even though the actual evidence bearing on “knowledge” may have been insufficient to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. I therefore dissent.
We held in In re Winship, 397 U. S. 358, 364 (1970), that the Due Process Clause requires “proof beyond a reasonable doubt of every fact necessary to constitute the crime . . . .” Thus, in Turner v. United States, 396 U. S. 398, 417 (1970), we approved the inference of “knowledge” from the fact of possessing smuggled heroin because ‘“[cjornmon sense’ . . . tells us that those who traffic in heroin will inevitably become aware that the product they deal in is smuggled . . . .” (Emphasis added.) The basis of that “common sense” judgment was, of course, the indisputable fact that all or virtually all heroin in this country is necessarily smuggled. Here, however, it cannot be said that all or virtually all endorsed United States Treasury checks have been stolen. Indeed, it is neither unlawful nor unusual *854for people to use such checks as direct payment for goods and services. Thus, unlike Turner, “common sense” simply will not permit the inference that the possessor of stolen Treasury checks “inevitably” knew that the checks were stolen. Cf. Leary v. United States, 395 U. S. 6 (1969).
In short, the practical effect of the challenged instruction was to permit the jury to convict petitioner even if it found insufficient or disbelieved all of the Government’s evidence bearing directly on the issue of “knowledge.” By authorizing the jury to rely exclusively on the inference in determining the element of “knowledge,” the instruction relieved the Government of the burden of proving that element beyond a reasonable doubt. The instruction thereby violated the principle of Winship that every essential element of the crime must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.