Court Opinion

ID: 8753737
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2022-11-26 11:37:26.900117+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:01:07.077165
License: Public Domain

WALLACE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting). I agree with* the' majority of the court that the evidence upon the trial fully warranted the verdict of guilty. Nevertheless, the question of the defendant’s guilt was one for the jury, and, if he was deprived of introducing evidence,-however slight its value might be, tending to show the possibility of his innocence, his exceptions to the rulings should entitle him to a new trial. I think he should have been permitted to show that Hanlon, the person mentioned by the witness Kiechlin, was a former letter carrier on the route of the defendant, who had been convicted of embezzlement and of larceny through decoy letters addressed like the two intended for the defendant. Kiechlin’s remarks suggested his suspicion that the two letters placed by him in the tnisbox were decoy letters, such as had been used to entrap Han-lon. They were made in the hearing of the defendant, and were likely to excite his suspicion also, and lead him to exercise unwonted caution to avoid being detected. The argument that, after his attention had been called to the character of the letters, he would be unlikely to embezzle them, or more wary in disposing of their contents, was one which could have been legitimately addressed to the jury; and, in view of the evidence introduced in his behalf tending to throw doubt upon his guilt, might have influenced their verdict. The exclusion of the evidence cannot be disregarded because the evidence may have been of trifling value. For this reason I think the defendant is entitled to a reversal of judgment and a new trial.