Court Opinion

ID: 9639602
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:41:29.759426+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:20.359442
License: Public Domain

RUDKIN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
One of the narcotic agents testified that upon the arrest of the appellant Levin they found automobile keys on his person, and that Levin informed them where the automobile could be found, giving a description of it. The witness was then permitted to- testify, over objection and exception, that he found in the automobile a pistol loaded with dumdum bullets. It Was not claimed that either the automobile or the pistol was used in the commission of the crimes charged in the in-, dietment, or that they were even present or nearby when the crime was. committed. It seems quite manifest, therefore; that the mere presence of the loaded pistol in the automobile had not the slightest tendency to prove that the owner of the car had dealt in or concealed narcotics at some time prior thereto, any more than it would tend to prove the commission of any other crime, such as crossing the street in the middle of a block in defiance of a municipal ordinance. It seems equally manifest that the testimony was not offered for any such purpose} but for the sole purpose of prejudicing "the appellant in the eyes of the jury. The court below doubtless appreciated this, for later in the course of the trial, on its own motion, it withdrew the testimony from the consideration of the jury and instructed them to disregard it.
On the cross-examination of the appellant Parmagini, the attorney for the government propounded the following question: “Why did you send word to me that if I would continue your trial for six months that you (would) make revelations in relation to the narcotic ring operating on the Pacific Coast?” An objection to the question was overruled and an exception allowed. The question itself was both improper and prejudicial. The attorney for the government in effect informed the jury that the appellant had sent an emissary or emissaries to him to bargain for favors, perhaps for ultimate immunity, under a promise that he would make revelations concerning the operation of an opium ring ,on the Pacific Coast. But how could such revelations be made unless the witness was a part or parcel of that ring or had dealings with it? At least, such was a proper, if not the only, inference to be drawn from the question. All of the authorities agree that a question thus assuming facts not in evidence is improper and may be prejudicial. Wharton’s Criminal Evidence (10th Ed.) p. 58; Leo v. State, 63 Neb. 723, 89 N. W. 303; State v. Fournier, 108 Minn. 402, 122 N. W. 329; People v. Wells, 100 Cal. 459, 34 P. 1078, 1079. In the latter case the court said: “It would be an impeachment of the legal learning of the counsel for the people to- intimate that he did not know the question to be improper, and wholly unjustifiable. Its .only purpose, therefore, was to get before the jury a statement, in the guise of a question, that would prejudice them against appellant. * * * Where the clear purpose is to prejudice the jury against the defendant in a vital matter by the mere asking of the questions, then a judgment against the defendant will be reversed, although objections to the questions were sustained, unless it appears that the questions could not have influenced the verdict.” See, also, Filippelli v. United States (C. C. A.) 6 F.(2d) 121.
But it is contended that the objection to the question, was insufficient. True, it was the stock form of objection, incompetent, irrelevant, and immaterial; but the vice in the question was so apparent that any form of objection was sufficient to attract the attention of the court. Sparf and Hansen v. United States, 156 U. S. 51, 57,15 S. Ct. 273, 39 L. Ed. 343; Sparks v. Oklahoma (C. C. A.) 146 F. 371, 374. Again, it may be said that the question was answered in the negative; but how can we know whether the jury accepted the statement of the accused as against the statement of the supposedly impartial representative of public justice?
In an ordinary ease, errors -such as these might be passed over as not prejudicial, but a case like this is out of the ordinary, and slight errors may well prove to be prejudicial. Illicit traffic in narcotics is today looked upon by the vast majority of mankind as one of the most infamous crimes known to the law, and a defendant charged with such a crime carries a heavy burden. He is confronted with presumption after presumption,, more or less arbitrary in their nature, and the principal witness against him is usually an habitue of the underworld, whose testimony *727would not be credited in any other field of litigation, especially if it were known that he was afforded an opportunity to make merchandise of his oath. Such was the principal witness for the government in this case, without whose testimony the verdict cannot stand. He served a term in the state penitentiary in California for grand larceny, and a term in the federal penitentiary for violation of the nareotio laws. Immediately upon his discharge from the latter institution, he entered the employ of the government. To use his own words: “I have been employed here in the narcotic division since that time. I receive a regular wage. During that time, besides my wage or salary, I received honorarium. My employers promised me in this case that besides my salary an honorarium will be given me.” What was meant by honorarium is left to the imagination; but had the appellants agreed to bestow a like honorarium on one of their witnesses, I apprehend it would be called by an uglier name. The witness was a twice-convicted felon and at the time of giving his testimony was living with a woman who was not his wife. Who she was or what she was we only know from the life she lived and the company she kept. His subsequent career of crime is a matter of common knowledge, but not a matter of record here. The right of the government to employ such a witness on such terms is not in question, but when it did employ him, with his prison record, his concubine and his honorarium, unrepentant, and unreformed, it should not have been permitted to bolster up his testimony by prejudicial statements from the prosecutor, or by prejudicial testimony from other sources. And to inform the jury that one of the appellants Was a gunman, in the parlance of the day, and that the other had agreed to make revelations concerning the operations of a narcotic ring on the Pacific Coast, was entirely out of place, to say the least, and would naturally, if not inevitably, tend to prejudice the jury.
Reversals because,of the admission of improper testimony are to be regretted, but there is no other known way to safeguard the rights of those accused of crime. To condone error is to invite further error, and there is but one way to stop a practice which has become altogether too common.
We are not now'concerned with the guilt or innoeenee of the accused, further than to say that without the testimony of the witness to whom We have referred the government made no case. Whether guilty or innocent; the appellants were entitled to have their ease fairly tried, according to the established rules of law, and, as said by a learned judge, “though unfair means may happen to result in doing justice to the prisoner in the particular case, yet, justice so attained, is unjust and dangerous to the whole community.” Hurd v. People, 25 Mich. 405.
You cannot suppress lawlessness by more lawlessness, nor can you inspire respect for the law by withholding its protection from those accused of crime.
The judgment should be reversed.