Court Opinion

ID: 9458397
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:51:18.296774+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:45.311269
License: Public Domain

RIVES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
The judgment denying McBride’s motion for new trial should, I think, be reversed and the motion should be remanded for further consideration in accordance with principles of law to be stated by this Court. The essential evidence of the crime was the coffee itself, which was seized from McBride’s truck without either an arrest or a search warrant. McBride moved to suppress that evidence on the ground that the coffee had been unlawfully seized. Allemand was the “key witness,” indeed the only witness, who testified on behalf of the government at the suppression hearing and he was the principal government witness at the trial. If Allemand’s testimony was knowingly false, then McBride’s conviction should not be allowed to stand, for “the dignity of the United States Government will not permit the conviction of any person on tainted testimony.” Mesarosh v. United States, 1956, 352 U.S. 1, 9, 77 S.Ct. 1, 5, 1 L.Ed.2d 1.
In Mesarosh, the Solicitor General moved that the case be remanded to the district court for a determination as to the credibility of one of the government witnesses. Instead the Court remanded with instructions to grant defendants a new trial.
In the present case the pertinent facts are thus stated in the majority opinion (p. 46):
“On November 23, 1970, Captain Allemand’s condition took a quick turn for the worse and he was rushed to the hospital. He died the next morning. Before he died, Allemand sent for McBride to come to the hospital. They conversed privately. Allemand told his wife that he had not told the truth at the suppression hearing; that, in fact, he had not recognized McBride when the van was first sighted but had followed the van essentially out of general suspicion. *50Moreover, he had not looked into the van nor had he seen any coffee bags before making the arrest. Specifically, Allemand thus repudiated the testimony which had established probable cause and had paved the way for the admissibility of the stolen coffee. He asked Mrs. Allemand to so inform the Court.”
It is true, as stated by the majority (p. 49), “* * * there is no claim that the prosecution knowingly used false or fraudulent testimony against McBride.” Such a claim, I submit, is not necessary. A motion for new trial under Rule 33, F.R.Crim.P., constitutes a direct attack on the judgment of conviction, and if the defendant proves that he was convicted on perjured testimony, he is not required to go further and prove that the prosecution used such testimony knowingly and willfully. United States v. West, D.C.Ohio, 1959, 170 F.Supp. 200, 207, aff’d 6 Cir. 1960, 274 F.2d 885; United States v. Schartner, E.D. Pa.1967, 285 F.Supp. 193.
“If the motion does not allege knowledge by the prosecution, and rests only on the ground that testimony at the trial was false, what is known as the ‘Larrison rule’ [Larrison v. United States, 7 Cir. 1928, 24 F.2d 82, 87-88] applies. This is that three requirements must be met before such a motion will be granted:
“(a) The court is reasonably well satisfied that the testimony given by a material witness is false, (b) That without it the jury might have' reached a different conclusion, (c) That the party seeking the new trial was taken by surprise when the false testimony was given and was unable to meet it for it did not know of its falsity until after the trial.”
2 Wright, Federal Practice & Procedure § 557, p. 525. The last two requirements, (b) and (c), are clearly met. The district court failed to express its finding as to the first requirement, (a), though it did find that Allemand’s wife testified truthfully as to what Allemand told her shortly before his death.
The lack of an oath to Allemand’s recantation is supplied by the fact either (1) that his statement was made under belief that his death was imminent,1 or (2) that the statement was against his interest, tending to subject him to criminal liability for perjury.2
The trial court exercises a broad discretion in deciding whether to grant or to deny a new trial upon newly discovered evidence,3 but there are limits to *51that discretion. A limit pertinent to the present case has been stated in an earlier decision of this Circuit (Judge Bryan, concurred in by Judges Walker and Foster):
“In our opinion it is the duty of a trial court to grant a new trial, where a witness at the original trial subsequently admits on oath that he committed perjury, or even that he was mistaken in his testimony provided such testimony related to a material issue, and was not merely cumulative.”
Martin v. United States, 5 Cir. 1927, 17 F.2d 973, 976. I would, for the sake of accuracy and caution, add that the rule as thus stated omits an important proviso consistent with the facts of the Martin case, viz.: provided that the trial judge finds the recantation either to speak the truth or to be such as would probably create such doubt in the mind of a reasonable juror that he would not rely upon the testimony given by the witness at the original trial.
It does not appear from the record that the district judge exercised his discretion in accordance with the stated principles of law. To the contrary the record strongly indicates that the primary consideration of the district judge was his conception of the abstract “justice” of McBride’s conviction, perhaps relying upon the opening sentence of Rule 33: “The court may grant a new trial to a defendant if required in the interest of justice.” (Emphasis added.) Thus the district judge declared:
“It is all on technicality. There is nothing on the rightness or wrongness of the theft of the coffee. The man stole the coffee or he had it in his possession, at least. Let me put it this way: He had in his possession stolen coffee and nobody else under the evidence adduced before this Jury could possibly have loaded that coffee in his truck without his knowledge. The coffee was in his truck. It was stolen and he had possession of it, and he drove it off of the dock and you are making great to-do about the motion to suppress.”
Transcript filed in the district court on Nov. 9, 1971, pp. 66 & 67.
Allemand’s recantation admitting perjury goes both to his credibility as a witness on McBride’s trial and to the admissibility of evidence not merely material but essential to prove McBride’s guilt. It has been recognized that a new trial should be granted when the new evidence does not go to the innocence or guilt of the accused but nevertheless would probably bring about a different result. In United States ex rel. Goins v. Sigler, E.D.La.1963, 224 F.Supp. 687, aff’d sub nom., United States ex rel. Goins v. Walker, 5 Cir. 1964, 340 F.2d 6, the relator filed a habeas petition seeking to have the federal court order the State of Louisiana to grant him a new trial on newly discovered evidence. At the original trial, a confession of the relator had been admitted into evidence. On the issue of voluntariness, the relator’s codefendant had testified that neither he nor the relator had been abused or mistreated. The relator came to federal district court armed with his codefendant’s recantation about the circumstances surrounding the giving of the confession. The district court chose not to believe the recantation but to believe the codefendant’s prior version of the circumstances. Nonetheless, the district court noted:
“Thus, the sole question now presented is one of credibility. If this Court were to decide that the [eodefendant] is now telling the truth, and that he did in fact perjure himself during the *52trial, then, of course, the question of the validity of petitioner’s confession would once again be at issue.”
224 F.Supp. at 689.
The question whether a confession is voluntary, like the question presented in this case, does not go primarily to the guilt or innocence of the defendant. As the Supreme Court recently opined:
“We noted in Jackson [v. Denno] that there may be a relationship between the involuntariness of a confession and- its unreliability.12 But our decision was not based in the slightest on the fear that juries might misjudge the accuracy of confessions and arrive at erroneous determinations of guilt or innocence. That case was not aimed at reducing the possibility of convicting innocent men.”
Lego v. Twomey, 1972, 404 U.S. 477, 484, 485, 92 S.Ct. 619, 624, 30 L.Ed.2d 618. Thus, the Supreme Court was saying that, even though a trial judge is convinced of the defendant’s guilt, he cannot admit in evidence a confession involuntarily given.
The critical consideration is whether the new evidence would probably bring about a different result. In this case the new evidence, if credited, would certainly bring about a different result. Allemand’s recantation, if believed, proves that the coffee was seized without probable cause and that McBride was unlawfully arrested. There was no testimony either at the suppression hearing or at McBride’s trial which would refute Allemand’s latest version of the arrest. The district judge should have resolved the question of which of Allemand’s versions is true. On remand, if he gives credence to the later account, a new trial must be granted. If he chooses on adequate grounds to believe Allemand’s original version, then the conviction must stand.
Mattox v. United States, 1895, 156 U.S. 237, 15 S.Ct. 337, 39 L.Ed. 409, should not control the decision, of this appeal. Though the point is far from momentous, I would suggest that the Supreme Court was divided five to three, instead of six to three as stated by the majority.4 The views of the dissenters are in accord with the views of the most eminent legal scholars.5 I would concede *53that that fact does not constitute such complete repudiation of Mattox (considered under the rule that Courts of Appeals have a right, and indeed are under a duty, to refuse slavishly to be bound by a thoroughly discredited ancient opinion of the Supreme Court)6 as would justify this Court in refusing to follow the Mattox decision. There is, however, more.
Mattox is clearly distinguishable from the present case upon many grounds, including the following. (1) Mattox should not be applied so as to nullify the line of later decisions such as Mesarosh, discussed at the beginning of this dissenting opinion. (2) We cannot know much but inferences as to the characters of the two witnesses, James and Violet, offered in the Mattox case to impeach the testimony of Whitman, but to say the least, James’ character was questionable and that of Violet was uncertain (see 156 U.S. at 244, 245, 15 S.Ct. 337), while in the present case Allemand’s own widow, the person least apt to reveal his perjury, testified to his recantation. Not surprisingly, the district judge believed that she testified truthfully. (3) Whitman’s recantation was not made on his death bed, while Allemand recanted under the belief that his death was imminent.7 (4) Whitman’s recantation was offered in Mattox at a trial on the merits, while Allemand’s recantation was offered in this case on motion for new trial. This fourth and last ground of distinction between Mattox and the present case is most important, and can best be considered first as it relates to Allemand’s retraction of his testimony given on the trial on the merits, and secondly as to his retraction of his testimony given on the hearing of the motion to suppress.
A. Trial on the merits. The trial judge has broad discretion in hearing and deciding a motion for new trial. With good reason, McBride’s counsel and the government’s counsel have vigorously debated the contention of McBride’s counsel that “ * * * even if the trial Judge had not seen fit to admit the statement attributed to Captain Allemand just before his death there was already in the record a sharp conflict in his testimony which fairly shouted that perjury had been committed, and, based on this conflict alone, it was his duty, under the provisions of Rule 33 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to order a new trial.” Supp. Brief of Appellant McBride, p. 2. To shed light on the decision of that contention, it was well within the discretion of the district judge to admit Allemand’s recantation.
Further, the majority conclusively assumes that Mattox would govern the admissibility of evidence on a new trial (see p. 48 of majority opinion). I submit that is not justified. Before a new trial, there is a clear possibility that the Supreme Court will either have overruled Mattox or will have adopted the proposed Rules of Evidence for the United States District Courts and Magistrates which depart completely from Mattox. See n. 5, supra.
B. Motion to Suppress. The motion to suppress was, of course, heard by the court and not by the jury. The applicable Rule 41(e), F.R.Cr.P., provides that “The judge shall receive evidence on any issue of fact necessary to the decision of the motion.” (Emphasis added.) Less rigorous standards govern the admission of evidence on the hearing of a motion for new trial than those applicable at a trial on the merits. Jones v. United States, 1960, 362 U.S. 257, 269, 80 S.Ct. 725, 4 L.Ed.2d 697. Mattox does not purport to limit the admissibility of evidence on a motion to suppress. Clearly the judge, if he believed that Allemand spoke the truth when he retracted his testimony given on the motion to suppress, and if no other and sufficient evidence was offered in opposition to that *54motion, would be bound to grant the motion. The prime consideration on a motion for new trial under Rule 33 is “the interest of justice.” “Justice” as there used obviously means not the trial judge’s abstract conception of “justice” but “justice under law.”
For the foregoing reasons, I respectfully dissent.

. On McBride’s motion for new trial, Mrs. Allemand testified that at the time of his recantation:
“THE COURT: Well, but I am thinking about a man against whom your husband had testified in Court. That type of people, did they usually come to see him while he was ill?
“THE WITNESS: Your Honor, let me put it this way: This night, on the 23rd of November, is when my husband got real, real sick. We had him in the Intensive Care Unit over at Methodist Hospital and he only requested that I call one person into the hospital and this was Alvin McBride. He wanted to talk to him. I wasn’t in the room when they talked, but I came into the room later, after they had talked, and he asked me, with tears in his eyes, would I please testify. He said I would probably have to go to Court for him that he wouldn’t make it.
“THE COURT: He-knew he was in a dying condition?
‘‘THE WITNESS: Yes, and the only other person I allowed to see him was Reverend Charles Green. He had requested this, that I call in Reverend Green before Captain Allemand went into surgery at 2:00 in the morning.”
Transcript filed in the district court Nov. 9,1971, pp. 18 & 19.

. See the dissenting opinion of Justice Holmes in Donnelly v. United States, 1913, 228 U.S. 243, 277, 33 S.Ct. 449, 57 L.Ed. 820, and the opinion of Chief Justice Burger in United States v. Harris, 1971, 403 U.S. 573, 584, 91 S.Ct. 2075, 29 L.Ed.2d 723.

. “The granting or refusing of a new trial upon newly discovered evidence of an impeaching character, including the recantation of a witness, rests in the sound discretion of the trial court; and a new *51trial will not be granted on the grounds of newly discovered evidence, unless such evidence is of a nature that, on a new trial, it would probably bring about a different result. It is for the trial judge to determine the probable effect it would have in changing the result on another trial; and in the absence of a dear showing of abuse of discretion, his action must stand.” Winer v. United States, C Cir. 1956, 228 F.2d 944, 952, cert. denied, 351 U.S. 906, 76 S.Ct. 695, 100 L.Ed. 1442.

“12. We noted that coerced confessions are forbidden in part because of their ‘probable unreliability.’ Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. [368], at 385-386 [84 S.Ct., at 1785, 12 L.Ed.2d 908]. However, it had been settled when this Court decided Jackson that the exclusion of unreliable confessions is not the purpose which a voluntariness hearing is designed to serve. Rogers v. Richmond, 365 U.S. 534 [81 S.Ct. 735, 5 L.Ed.2d 760] (1961). The sole issue in such a hearing is whether a confession was coerced. AVJiether it be true or false is irrelevant; indeed, such an inquiry is forbidden. The judge may not take into consideration evidence which would indicate that the confession, though compelled, is reliable, even highly so. Id., at 545 [81 S.Ct. at 741]. As difficult as such tasks may be to accomplish, the judge is also duty-bound to ignore implications of reliability in facts relevant to coercion and tc shut from his mind any internal evidence of authenticity which a confession itself may bear.

. Compare footnote 1 on the flyleaf of 156 U.S. listing the Justices: “Mr. Justice Jackson, by reason of illness, hoard argument in no case after October 23, 1894,” with the paragraph just preceding the names of counsel on 156 U.S. at p. 238 [15 S.Ct. 337] :
“This case was argued on the part of the plaintiff in error and submitted on the part of the defendants in error, on the 23d of October, 1894. On the 3d of December, 1894, leave was granted counsel to file further briefs upon the question of the admissibility of alleged contradictory statements, and it was stated that the cause would then be taken on resubmission to the full bench on briefs, if counsel should so indicate. On the 10th day of December it was resubmitted.”

. IIIA AVigmore on Evidence (Chadbourn Revision) § 1028, p. 1023; A.L.I. Model Code of Evidence Rule 106(2) and Comment on pages 127, 128; Proposed Rules of Evidence for the United States District Courts and Magistrates — see rules 6-13, 8-06, and the part of the Advisory Committee’s Note on page 216.

. See Browder v. Gayle, M.D.Ala. (3-Judge Court) 1956, 142 F.Supp. 707, 716, n. 14, aff’d (1956); 352 U.S. 903, 77 S.Ct. 145, 1 L.Ed.2d 114.

. See n. 1, supra.