Court Opinion

ID: 9453640
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:19:33.358545+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:44.456596
License: Public Domain

RIVES, Circuit Judge,
with whom Circuit Judges WISDOM, GOLDBERG and GODBOLD join, dissenting:
In our original opinion we had referred to the opinion of the Court of Criminal Appeals of Texas1 with the statement
“That opinion details how Gober was the principal witness for the State and his testimony as to effecting the sale was corroborated by officers High-tower and McMannes, who observed him from a distance with field glasses.”
Luna v. Beto, 5th Cir. 1967, 391 F.2d 329. The central connection of Gober with Luna’s conviction is of such importance that I now quote the facts as succinctly stated by the Texas Court:
“The offense is the sale of heroin; the punishment, 25 years.
“The count of the indictment upon which the case was submitted to the jury alleged the sale of a narcotic drug, to-wit, heroin, to William Gober.
“Gober, an ex-convict, testified that on August 30, 1963, the date alleged in the indictment, he was at an Ice-house-Beer Parlor drinking beer. About 1 o’clock P.M. the appellant and one Robert or Bobby Ortega drove up.
“In a conversation between them appellant asked Gober if he ‘wanted to score’ and Gober said he probably would in a little while.
“Appellant said he would have ‘some stuff’ ready shortly, and left.
“Gober finished his beer and called Police Officer Hightower.
“About 3 P.M. appellant again came to the beer parlor and told Gober that he had ‘some stuff’ over on James Street under a house, and asked Gober if he was ready to buy. Gober replied that he had to go around the corner and would be back and appellant said he would wait in Ortega’s car, ‘and he asked me how long it would be before I would be back and be ready to buy this heroin,’ and Gober replied that it would just be a few minutes.
“Gober then went to a Pig Stand on North Main where he met Police Officer Hightower and McMannes who, after searching him and the front part of his car, gave him $21.00. Gober then drove back to the Icehouse where appellant and Ortega were sitting in Ortega’s tan Chevrolet car. Upon signal from appellant, Gober followed the Chevrolet driven by Ortega to a place in the 400 block of James Street where the Chevrolet car stopped and Gober drove up directly behind it and got out of his car.
“Appellant went across the street and crawled under a house. In a matter of seconds he came out and walked up to Gober and said ‘Where’s the money?’ Gober got the $21.00 out of his pocket and gave it to appellant in exchange for three capsules which appellant took from a package.
“Gober further testified that Officers Hightower and McMannes, in an unmarked ear, followed him from the time they gave him the $21.00, and *44that after appellant received the money and drove away Officer Hightower followed as he drove to a secluded area near some warehouses where he gave the capsules he had bought from appellant to Officer McMannes and they again searched him and searched his automobile.
“Officer Hightower, assigned to the Narcotics Division of the Houston Police Department, testified that he received a call from Gober, went with his partner, McMannes, to the Pig Stand dressed in plain clothes, where they had a conversation with Gober; searched him and his car and advanced him $21.00 ‘of official city funds’ with instructions.
“Officer Hightower further testified that he and his partner followed Gober to the icehouse, where he saw appellant with his arm out the window of the car driven by Ortega, and continued following both cars to the 400 block of James Street. He testified that from a distance of a block and a half, using field glasses, he saw appellant go to the house at 411 James and return to where Gober was standing; saw Gober hand appellant some money and appellant, in return, hand Gober something.
“Also he testified that he and his partner followed Gober to the prearranged meeting place where Gober gave Officer McMannes three capsules and they again searched him and his car, and returned the money they had found in his pocket when they first searched him.
“Floyd E. McDonald testified that he ran an analysis on the contents of the three capsules identified as State’s Exhibit No. 1 which revealed that each contained about one gram of 26.4 percent pure heroin, a narcotic drug.”
Luna v. State of Texas, supra note 1, 387 S.W.2d at 896, 897.
Gober was the only witness as to what occurred between him and Luna, except for the rather meagre corroboration from Officer Hightower. There was no circumstantial corroboration, such as the finding of marked money in Luna’s possession. We can only speculate as to how thorough a search of Gober’s car was made. Gober’s testimony was that they searched “the front part of his car.” Nor can we be certain as to how much occurred outside of the officers’ observation “from a distance of a block and a half, using field glasses.” Very clearly Luna’s conviction would not have been possible without Gober’s testimony. To find Luna guilty, the jury must have believed Gober beyond a reasonable doubt.
On en banc rehearing, however, the majority find that the test of Chapman v. State of California, 1967, 386 U.S. 18, 24, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 has been met, and that it is clear beyond a reasonable doubt that if Gober had truthfully answered the questions propounded to him or if the State had made full disclosure of the facts, Gober’s credibility would not have been further impaired in the minds of the jurors. That conclusion the majority reach by the strange process of reasoning that Gober had already been shown to be unworthy of belief.2
The conclusive answer, I submit, is that the jury did believe Gober’s testimony beyond any reasonable doubt as evidenced by their verdict.
Has then the requirement of Chapman been met? Is it clear beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury’s verdict would *45have been the same if the jury had known the facts and circumstances which so seriously affect Gober’s credibility, viz: that the police were holding over Gober charges of narcotics’ law violations, and that they had promised Go-ber whatever help they could give him with his case in return for his cooperation in obtaining evidence against narcotics’ peddlers? To me that is not clear. Juries reason differently from judges, and, with deference to my brothers, the jury’s reasoning is sometimes the better. Obviously the jury believed Gober despite his record as an admitted murderer, burglar and thief. The jury doubtless recognized the hard fact that witnesses of excellent repute can rarely be produced to prove narcotics’ violations. If the jury had been furnished the evidence to which it was denied access, its reasoning as to the effect of that evidence may have differed from the reasoning of the present majority in this case. Perhaps the jury would have reasoned that while a person of good character would not furnish false testimony to better himself, an admitted murderer, burglar and thief might do so. That process of reasoning is not so contrary to common sense that we can say beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury would have been uninfluenced if Gober had answered truthfully or if the State had disclosed the facts known to its police officers.
My brother Wisdom’s scholarly opinion for the Court in Jackson v. Wainwright, 5th Cir. 1968, 390 F.2d 288, traces the development of the prosecutor’s constitutional duty to disclose evidence favorable to the defendant. I shall do no more than touch on the milestones. The first case clearly to enunciate such a doctrine was Mooney v. Holohan, 1935, 294 U.S. 103, 55 S.Ct. 340, 79 L.Ed. 791 where the state prosecutor’s knowing use of perjured testimony to procure the defendant’s conviction was held to be a denial of due process of law. With deference to the majority in the present case, I submit that a careful reading of their opinion will disclose that they have stopped at this milestone and are not keeping pace with the developments of the doctrine in the more than thirty years since that ease was decided.
Mooney v. Holohan was followed some seven years later in Pyle v. State of Kansas, 1942, 317 U.S. 213, 216, 63 S.Ct. 177, 87 L.Ed. 214, but the next milestone decision was Napue v. State of Illinois, 1959, 360 U.S. 264, 79 S.Ct. 1173, 3 L.Ed.2d 1217. That case marks at least two important advances: first, the Court substitutes the term “false evidence” for “perjured testimony,” and, second, the Court places evidence affecting the credibility of a witness on a parity with evidence as to the commission of the crime. Speaking for a unanimous Court, Chief Justice Warren stated the doctrine as follows:
<<* * * it is established that a conviction obtained through use of false evidence, known to be such by representatives of the State, must fall under the Fourteenth Amendment * * *. The same result obtains when the State, although not soliciting false evidence, allows it to go uncorrected when it appears. * * *
“The principle that a State may not knowingly use false evidence, including false testimony, to obtain a tainted conviction, implicit in any concept of ordered liberty, does not cease to apply merely because the false testimony goes only to the credibility of the witness. The jury’s estimate of the truthfulness and reliability of a given witness may well be determinative of guilt or innocence, and it is upon such subtle factors as the possible interest of the witness in testifying falsely that a defendant’s life or liberty may depend.” (360 U.S. at 269, 79 S.Ct. at 1177)3
*46The next important development came in Brady v. Maryland, 1963, 373 U.S. 83, 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 where the Court’s holding was thus stated:
“We now hold that the suppression by the prosecution of evidence favorable to an accused upon request violates due process where the evidence is material either to guilt or to punishment, irrespective of the good faith or bad faith of the prosecution.”
As so well said by Judge Wisdom in Jackson v. Wainwright, supra, 390 F.2d at 295:
“In Brady v. Maryland, 1963, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215, the Court made it clear that its primary interest was not to punish misconduct by the prosecutor, but to insure a fair trial to the defendant, and particularly to insure that the trial would bring out, not hide, the truth.”
The doctrine has been further developed in Miller v. Pate, 1967, 386 U.S. 1, 87 S.Ct. 785, 17 L.Ed.2d 690 and in Giles v. State of Maryland, 1967, 386 U.S. 66, 87 S.Ct. 793, 17 L.Ed.2d 737.
In the light of the law as now developed, I submit, with deference, that the majority’s labored consideration of whether the exact wording of the questions and of Gober’s answers were such that Gober committed the state crime of perjury is not at all decisive. The majority takes pains to explain when the term of court ended and whether Gober committed perjury when he testified: “I don’t have any pending cases against me.” That statement was made in answer to the question: “Q. How many cases have they filed on you — do they have over you right now?”4 In that context, it is immaterial, insofar as Luna is concerned, whether the cases were technically “pending,” when it is without dispute that Gober was still subject to prosecution. The matters seriously affecting Gober’s credibility were the cases which the police “have over you right now,” and the promise of the police officers to give Gober “whatever help they could with his case” in return for his cooperation in obtaining evidence against narcotic peddlers. These matters, though fully known to the police, were never revealed to Luna.
With deference, I submit that the present majority has based its opinion and decision largely on the technicalities of the state law of evidence, and the strict requirements necessary to convict Gober of perjury. In the present state of the law, such technicalities and requirements peculiar to the laws of any one state have little or nothing to do with the application of the federal constitutional doctrine which prohibits the knowing use of false testimony and requires fair disclosure of facts and circumstances within the peculiar knowledge of the state which may be favorable to the defendant.
For the foregoing reasons, in addition to those stated in the majority opinion on original hearing and in Judge Wisdom’s opinion for this Court in Jackson v. Wainwright, supra, I respectfully dissent.

. Luna v. State of Texas, Tex.Cr.App.1965, 387 S.W.2d 896.

. “We are convinced that no jury would disbelieve a witness who admitted to being a burglar, a thief and a murderer simply because he had also been charged with possessing narcotics.” (Majority opinion, p. 38.) “It would not have destroyed any inference raised by the state’s evidence, for it would be ludicrous to suggest that a charge of possessing narcotics would impair the image of an admitted murderer, burglar and thief.” (Majority opinion, p. 39.)

. To like effect, see Ingram v. Peyton, 4th Cir. 1966, 367 F.2d 933; United States v. Poole, 7th Cir. 1967, 379 F.2d 645; Levin v. Katzenbach, 1966, 124 U.S.App.D.C. 158, 363 F.2d 287.

. No question of admissibility was raised by any objection to this question or to the answer. The answer was clearly admissible for the purpose of showing the existence or lack of bias, prejudice or motive of the witness. See Hall v. State, Tex.Crim.App.1966, 402 S.W.2d 752, 755, 756; O’Neal v. State, Tex.Crim.App.1912, 146 S.W. 938, 940, 941; Eaves v. State, 115 Tex.Cr.R. 460, 1930, 29 S.W.2d 339, 341; Wigmore on Evidence, § 949, p. 503, §§ 967, 968, pp. 525-527.