Court Opinion

ID: 9842924
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:21:54.0943+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:19.993042
License: Public Domain

OAKES, Circuit Judge with whom Judge GURFEIN
concurs (dissenting):
The panel majority opinion sets forth Judge Gurfein’s and my views on the principal issues in this case. 544 F.2d 611 (2d Cir. 1976). I stated there that the case was “exceedingly close” on its facts. Id. at 616. Without evidence that Robinson was in possession of a gun at the time of his arrest (because the trial judge in the exercise of his discretion excluded it), there was a hung jury in the first trial. With such evidence (admitted by another trial judge in the exercise of his discretion), it still took a second Allen charge and further deliberation to move the second jury to vote for conviction. One is led to infer that the testimony as to possession of the gun made a crucial difference (despite limiting instructions). Since I believe that admission of the gun evidence constituted reversible error, I dissent.
As will be seen, this case turns to a large extent on its facts, which the en banc majority views differently from the panel majority. Because this case, insofar as it relates to the exercise of trial court discretion, must be resolved on its facts, and because, as would be expected, the en banc majority opinion establishes no new principles of law in the process, a disinterested observer might inquire as to purpose of en banc treatment. Obviously the court must either have a new, more liberal test for what is to be reheard en banc or a great deal of free time to engage in this type of exercise. But see Gilliard v. Oswald, 557 F.2d 359 (2d Cir. 1977) (denial of rehearing en banc in prisoners’ rights case). Of course, I recognize that the court does make new — and I think bad — law in its disposition of the double Allen charge point, see Part IV infra, but that point was not the basis of the petition for rehearing en banc or its grant.
I.

Review of Trial Court Discretion

The en banc majority opinion cites many authorities, from this circuit and others, for the unexceptionable proposition that we should not substitute our judgment for that *519of the trial judge on matters within his discretion, particularly matters dependent on personal observation at trial. This proposition by repetition hardly takes on new meaning. If,the use of the words “arbitrary or irrational” is designed somehow to change this circuit’s standard for review of trial court discretion, the majority opinion does not say so. The rule in this circuit, restated not long ago in the context of the provision here involved, Fed.R.Evid. 403, is that “great discretion in the trial judge does not mean immunity from accountability.” United States v. Dwyer, 539 F.2d 924, 928 (2d Cir. 1976). See also Michelson v. United States, 335 U.S. 469, 480, 69 S.Ct. 213, 93 L.Ed. 168 (1948) (“[w]ide discretion is accompanied by heavy responsibility on trial courts”); Rosenberg, Judicial Discretion of the Trial Court, Viewed From Above, 22 Syracuse L.Rev. 635, 665-66 (1971).
Recognizing this rule, we held under Fed. R.Evid. 403 that a trial judge’s “wide discretion” in the “balancing of probative value against unfair prejudice” had been abused in a particular factual context, United States v. Dwyer, supra, 539 F.2d at 927-28, without making any claim that the trial judge had acted irrationally. Nor did the author of the en banc majority opinion make any such claim in his recent opinion arguing that a specific weighing of probative value and prejudice amounted to an abuse of discretion. United States v. Ortiz, No. 76-1460, 553 F.2d 782, 787-789 (2d Cir. 1977) (dissenting opinion). See also Contemporary Mission Inc. v. Famous Music Corp., 557 F.2d 918, 928 (2d Cir. 1977); Marx & Co. v. Diners’ Club, Inc., 550 F.2d 505, 510-511 & nn. 18-19 (2d Cir. 1977). For the balance of this discussion I will assume that the standard established by these cases and others and not departed from in the majority opinion is the proper one for reviewing the exercise of trial court discretion here.
II.

Relevance, Probative Value and Prejudicial Impact

Before the balancing process mandated by Fed.R.Evid. 403 can begin, the court must determine that the evidence in issue is “relevant,” as that term is defined in Rule 401. The relevancy test of Rule 401 is an extremely modest one, so that the en banc majority’s assertion of a “concession” of relevancy by the panel majority, ante, 560 F.2d at 512, provides no help at all in resolving this case. Since the bank robbers here carried guns, evidence of appellant’s later possession of a gun does meet the rule’s test of having “any tendency” to make appellant’s participation in the robbery “more probable,” but so would evidence of, e. g., appellant’s sex (assuming identification of the sex of the robbers), despite the fact that millions of others share that characteristic. Relevancy under Rule 401 is nothing more than a threshold test, a starting point in the determination of admissibility.1
Once evidence is deemed relevant, the trial court must then weigh carefully its probative value against the danger of unfair prejudice that evidence creates. The probative value of evidence cannot, of course, be assessed in a vacuum; the value must always be measured in terms of the purpose for which the evidence was introduced. See Dolan, Rule 403: The Prejudice Rule in Evidence, 49 S.Cal.L.Rev. 220, 233 (1976). In this case, as Judge Bryan’s charge to the jury makes clear, see ante, 560 F.2d at 511 n. 4, the evidence was admitted “solely for the limited purpose” of establishing “defendant’s identity as one of the robbers.” The en bane majority offers two indirect ways in which the gun evi*520dence might have helped to establish appellant’s identity, neither of which was mentioned by the trial court. The majority contends that the evidence helped to corroborate Simon’s testimony and that it was relevant to appellant’s “opportunity” to commit the crime charged. Significantly, the majority does not discuss the degree of probative value of the gun evidence for either of these purposes, nor does it discuss whether the evidence provided any genuine direct proof of appellant’s identity, pursuant to the trial court’s charge.
The majority opinion first states that the gun evidence “tended directly to identify appellant as one of the participants, corroborating Simon’s testimony.” Ante, 560 F.2d at 512. The majority does not explain how corroboration of an accomplice’s testimony can amount to “direct” identification of a defendant from his later possession of a gun. Such corroboration at best is an indirect form of identification, but even for this corroborative purpose the evidence here lacked probative value. Once Simon had decided to link appellant to the robbery,2 it stands to reason that he would provide the authorities with supporting details that would help to implicate appellant in the crime. Thus the fact that appellant was found with a .38 caliber gun after Simon had said such a gun was prepared for use in the robbery may show nothing more than that Simon knew that appellant owned a .38. To use the example referred to above, it is as if Simon had told the authorities that all the robbers were men. We would then not be surprised if Simon identified a man as a robber, but we would hardly argue that Simon’s statement had been significantly corroborated merely because the one identified turned out to be a man.
The alternative purpose alleged in the majority opinion, that of showing that appellant had the “opportunity” to commit the robbery, see Fed.R.Evid. 404(b), is also indirectly linked to identity, see United States v. Ravich, 421 F.2d 1196, 1204 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 834, 91 S.Ct. 69, 27 L.Ed.2d 66 (1970), but the gun evidence is of virtually no probative significance in this regard. Neither the en banc majority nor the Government attempts to demonstrate that the gun evidence had any more probative value than that necessary to meet Rule 401’s test of relevancy, discussed above. Appellant did possess, when arrested, a single .38 caliber gun, and that fact does show that “he had access to an instrument similar to that used to commit [the robbery],” ante, 560 F.2d at 513. But had any one of the hundreds of thousands of persons who possess the same caliber gun— no one contends that the gun here was other than undistinctive and unremarkable — been arrested for this crime, his possession of the gun would have been just as *521probative of his “opportunity” as was appellant’s possession here.3
The possession of a single gun of a common type is manifestly different from the situation in a ease like United States v. Ravich, supra, where a number of handguns were found together with a large amount of ammunition, see 421 F.2d at 1204. Such an arsenal is unusual enough to give its finding some probative value on the question of opportunity or preparation. Similarly, the gun found in United States v. Wiener, 534 F.2d 15 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 429 U.S. 820, 97 S.Ct. 66, 50 L.Ed.2d 80 (1976), was seized from a distinctive burlap bag that also contained the narcotics and paraphernalia which were the principal items of evidence in the case, see id. at 17 & n. 3,18. The gun in United States v. Campanile, 516 F.2d 288 (2d Cir. 1975), was the particular gun that the defendant himself admitted taking to the area of the robberies.4 Such guns, found in unusual situations or closely linked to the crimes in question, have a degree of probative value that is entirely missing in this case, where the gun was undistinctive and no evidence linked it to the commission of the crime.5 The gun here thus showed no more about appellant’s “opportunity” to commit the crime than it would have shown about the opportunity of anyone else found in possession of such a gun.
In view of the thinness of the gun evidence from both “corroboration” and “opportunity” standpoints, it is perhaps not surprising that the trial judge’s charge did not mention either of these purposes in connection with that evidence. One would think that, had the judge intended to allow the jury first to link the gun evidence to Simon’s testimony or to appellant’s “opportunity” and then to reason from there to appellant’s identity as a robber, he would have instructed the jury accordingly, particularly in view of the relative complexity or sophistication of such analysis. Instead, Judge Bryan stated that the “only” purpose for the evidence’s admission was for the light it shed on the question of identity. This statement, combined with the obvious weakness of the evidence in terms of other purposes, led the panel majority to focus on the evidence’s probative value in directly establishing appellant’s identity, something that the en banc majority opinion (as I read it) fails to do.
Since the panel majority’s characterization of the evidence as “very weak” for this purpose, 544 F.2d at 616, is not disputed by the en banc majority, a short summary of the panel majority’s reasoning should suffice here. We recognized in United States v. Ravich, supra, 421 F.2d at 1204 n. 10, that “[t]he length of the chain of inferences necessary to connect the evidence with the ultimate fact to be proved necessarily lessens the probative value of the evidence.” Here the “chain of inferences” contained two tenuous links. First, from appellant’s possession of a .38 ten weeks after the robbery, the jury would have had to infer that he possessed a .38 at the time of the robbery, when he might just as well have purchased the gun in the interval between the robbery and his arrest.6 See 2 J. Wig-*522more, Evidence § 410, at 384 (3d ed. 1940) (“this inference is always open to doubt”); id. § 437, at 413 (“the disturbing contingency is that some circumstance operating in the interval may have been the source of the subsequent existence”). Second, even assuming that appellant, along with thousands of other New Yorkers, possessed a .38 on the date of the robbery, and assuming that a .38 was actually used in the robbery, see 544 F.2d at 617 n. 8; note 5 supra, the jury would then have had somehow to infer that appellant’s indistinctive .38 was the .38 used in the robbery. This inference was highly problematic on the facts of this case, since no evidence was introduced linking appellant’s gun to the robbery or indicating that appellant carried a gun during the robbery, see note 5 supra. With two such difficult inferences to be overcome, “the probative value of the testimony that appellant possessed a .38 ten weeks after the robbery must be characterized as slight.” 544 F.2d at 618.
I believe that this slight probative value “is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.” Fed.R.Evid. 403. I need not dwell here on the likelihood of prejudice from admission of the gun evidence, since the en banc majority opinion essentially agrees with the analysis of the panel majority opinion, 544 F.2d at 618-19. The danger, as the en banc majority points out, ante, 560 F.2d at 514, is that such inflammatory evidence may distract the jury from the question of guilt or innocence of a specific crime, leading it to return a conviction not because the defendant committed a particular robbery, but rather in order to punish him for carrying a gun or for being an unsavory character. See Contemporary Mission, Inc. v. Famous Music Corp., supra, 557 F.2d at 930 (Van Graafei-land, J., concurring and dissenting) (“Evidence which may be arguably relevant should not be admitted if it tends . to mislead rather than enlighten the jury.”).
The trial court’s limiting instruction here was directed at dispelling this danger, but, in my view, was inadequate for this purpose. It mentioned the proper use of the gun evidence, the identification purpose, only once and did not mention any of the intermediate inferences necessary to connect the gun evidence to appellant’s identity as a robber, e. g., whether appellant had the gun at the date of the robbery. Moreover, as Judge Mansfield has recently noted, certain types of evidence are likely to be used “improperly” by a jury, “notwithstanding instructions.” United States v. Ortiz, supra, 553 F.2d at 788 (dissenting opinion), citing United States v. Puco, 453 F.2d 539, 542 (2d Cir. 1971) (“The average jury is unable, despite curative instructions, to limit the influence of a defendant’s criminal record to the issue of credibility.”). Indeed, Rule 403 “by its terms concedes the possibility that the negative aspects of some evidence may simply be unmanageable for the factfinder regardless of instructions,” for the rule would be wholly unnecessary if cautionary instructions could always dispel the possibility of unfair prejudice. Dolan, supra, 49 S.Cal.L.Rev. at 250. See generally Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 129, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 1624, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968), quoting Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U.S. 440, 453, 69 S.Ct. 716, 93 L.Ed. 790 (1949) (Jackson, J., concurring) (“ ‘The naive assumption that prejudicial effects can be overcome by instructions to the jury . all practicing lawyers know to be unmitigated fiction.’ ”). Given the probable inefficacy of the cryptic limiting instruction here, the slight probative value of the gun *523evidence, and the very real danger of unfair prejudice, I believe that admission of the gun evidence constituted error.
III.

Reversible Error: The Relevance of Other Evidence in the Case

The en banc majority opinion displays a certain ambivalence on the question of how evidence other than the gun evidence is relevant to the Rule 403 assessment. On the one hand, it asserts that the fact that this was a close case before the jury is “irrelevant to [the ] weighing process.” Ante, 560 F.2d at 516 n. 11. On the other, it seems preoccupied with showing that a strong case for conviction existed apart from the gun evidence, summarizing the other evidence against appellant in the same paragraph that it approves the Rule 403 balancing done by the trial judge. Id. at 516.
The majority cannot have it both ways. If indeed there were substantial other evidence against appellant, then the already slight probative value of the gun evidence is further diminished to the vanishing point, since the Government would have less need for this evidence in order to win its case. See United States v. Ravich, supra, 421 F.2d at 1204. But I believe that the other evidence against appellant was weak, a fact that, while making the gun evidence of somewhat more value to the Government, also makes it more likely that the trial court’s error in admitting the gun evidence affected the judgment, see R. Traynor, The Riddle of Harmless Error 28 (1970).
The weakness of the Government’s case becomes immediately apparent when the evidence summarized in the en banc majority opinion is placed in its proper context. The principal witness against appellant, Simon, had strong motivation to help the prosecution in order to reduce his own sentence, as the majority recognizes, ante, 560 F.2d at 510; the majority fails to note certain other ways in which Simon’s credibility was diminished, summarized in note 2 supra. Cf. United States v. Ortiz, supra, 553 F.2d at 787-788 (Mansfield, J., dissenting) (noting “unsavory background” of crucial Government witness in context of weighing probative value and prejudice). As for other evidence, the majority mentions that appellant’s fingerprint was found on the right rear cigarette lighter panel of Brown’s car, but it fails to note that Simon had appellant riding in the left rear position going to the robbery and testified that appellant was not in the rear at all after the robbery. Hence the fingerprint evidence, which could not be dated, see 544 F.2d at 614, proves nothing more than that appellant had at some point ridden in Brown’s car, a fact that is undisputed and unsurprising in view of Brown’s testimony that he had given appellant, an acquaintance and fellow student, rides a half-dozen times pri- or to the robbery.
As for the use of “hospital-type jackets,” from which the Government implies some sort of connection with appellant, who worked at a hospital, it is undisputed that the jackets, while white, were actually butchers’ jackets and in fact had “meat market” written on them. The bank surveillance photographs of the robber alleged to be appellant were described by Simon as “hazy” and have provoked substantial uncertainty on this court, see 544 F.2d at 614. The robber in those photographs, as is noted above, note 5 supra, does not appear to be carrying any gun, whereas appellant allegedly carried the infamous .38, which he later “handed over” to Garris in the car, according to Simon and as emphasized by the majority, ante, 560 F.2d at 512. This latter fact is particularly surprising because it is inconsistent with appellant’s possession of a .38 at the time of arrest. If he handed it over after the robbery, how did he get it back? Why, if it were his gun as Simon claimed, would he hand it over to someone else after the robbery? I note, as the majority does not, that none of the eight nonparticipant eyewitnesses to the crime identified appellant as one of the robbers. Only Simon did so.
In view of the infirmities in the Government’s case, it is not surprising that a hung jury resulted at appellant’s first trial, *524where the jury was not exposed to the gun evidence, and that the jury at appellant’s second trial nearly hung, requiring extensive deliberations over three days and two Allen -type charges before it could reach a verdict. While there were some minor differences between the evidence adduced at the two trials, there is little doubt that the introduction of the gun evidence was by far the most significant difference. Given the weakness of the Government’s other evidence, the gun evidence had to have had an impact on the jury. There is simply no way to view its admission as harmless, and the majority does not argue otherwise. Concluding that the error in admitting the gun evidence affected the judgment, I would reverse.
IV.

The Juror’s Note and the Two Allen Charges

Because the panel majority reversed on the Rule 403 ground, Judge Gurfein and I did not have to reach the questions whether the court below committed reversible error either in sealing the juror’s note expressing her “strong reasonable doubt” or in giving two Allen-type charges after knowing of the jury’s 11-1 split, with the second charge obviously directed at the particular woman who had written the judge of her doubt. The en banc majority concludes that neither issue provides ground for reversal.
The majority’s conclusion as to the first issue is apparently based on the harmless error doctrine. The majority states that “the better procedure is for the trial judge to disclose the contents of a juror’s note to the parties,” but that “the failure to do so here was hardly prejudicial error.” Ante, 560 F.2d at 516. This latter conclusion may be supported on the record before us, but the seriousness of the trial court’s failure to disclose the note’s contents should be emphasized. This court recently held that a trial court’s failure to disclose the substance of its communications with a juror constituted error, United States v. Taylor, 562 F.2d 1345, 1365 (2d Cir. 1977), noting that such private communications violate a defendant’s right to be present at all stages of the proceedings, id. at 1365; see Fed.R. Crim.P. 43(a); Illinois v. Allen, 397 U.S. 337, 338, 90 S.Ct. 1057, 25 L.Ed.2d 353 (1970). In another recent opinion, this court stressed the importance of “an informed discussion [between court and counsel] on the proper course to follow,” United States v. Van Meerbeke, 548 F.2d 415, 418 (2d Cir. 1976), cert. denied, 430 U.S. 974, 97 S.Ct. 1663, 52 L.Ed.2d 368 (1977), citing the Robinson panel opinion for this proposition, id. at 418 n. 2; see 544 F.2d at 621 (“benefits” of “informed discussion and debate between court and counsel . even where a court may be aware in the abstract of its own alternatives”). The trial court here should have revealed to counsel the substance of the juror’s note, without disclosing the individual juror’s name or the jury vote.7 See United States v. Dellinger, 472 F.2d 340, 377-80 (7th Cir. 1972), cert. denied, 410 U.S. 970, 93 S.Ct. 1443, 35 L.Ed.2d 406 (1973).
With regard to the trial court’s giving of two Allen-type charges after knowing of the jury’s 11-1 split, the majority emphasizes parts of the court’s second charge and ignores the overall potential for coercion. The charge did mention “individual judgment” and “individual conscience,” but it also instructed the jurors — and in reality only the one juror whose note the court was explicitly answering by giving the second Allen charge — that they should have “a proper regard for and deference to the *525opinions of one another,” that they “should listen to one another’s views with a disposition to be convinced,” and that they had a “duty ... to agree upon a verdict” if they could do so. The charge here, in short, was quite similar to the charge of Allen v. United States, 164 U.S. 492, 501, 17 S.Ct. 154, 41 L.Ed. 528 (1896), a charge that, “[l]ike dynamite . . . should be used with great caution, and only when absolutely necessary,” United States v. Flannery, 451 F.2d 880, 883 (1st Cir. 1971).
Here the second charge was not necessary and could not be otherwise than coercive. While the majority cites cases in which we have upheld the giving of one Allen charge after trial court notice of an 11-1 jury division, ante, 560 F.2d at 517, there is apparently no case, in this or any other circuit, upholding the giving of two Allen charges after the jury informs the judge of its 11-1 split. The fact that such a case has not arisen is itself indicative of a well-founded reluctance on the part of trial judges twice to tell a lone holdout to listen to other jurors’ views “with a disposition to be convinced.” When the judge so instructs the lone holdout, “the effect ... is unavoidably to add the judge’s influence to the side of the majority . . . .” with the sole minority juror “developing] a sense of isolation and the impression that [he or she is] the special object of the judge’s attention.” United States v. Sawyers, 423 F.2d 1335, 1349 (4th Cir. 1970) (Sobeloff, J., dissenting); see United States v. Meyers, 410 F.2d 693, 697 (2d Cir.) (Smith, J., dissenting), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 835, 90 S.Ct. 93, 24 L.Ed.2d 86 (1969); Mullin v. United States, 123 U.S.App.D.C. 29, 356 F.2d 368, 370 (1966); Note, The Allen Charge: Recurring' Problems and Recent Developments, 47 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 296, 306-08 (1972); Note, Due Process, Judicial Economy and the Hung Jury: A Reexamination of the Allen Charge, 53 Va.L.Rev. 123, 130-32 (1967).
Here the lone holdout quite obviously knew that she was “the special object of the judge’s attention.” Her note told the judge that she was the holdout, so that he knew to whom his remarks were addressed, and she knew that he knew. This aspect of our case, coupled with the giving of two Allen charges, differentiates it from the cases cited by the majority. Making “an individualized determination of coercion,” as the majority opinion suggests, ante, 560 F.2d at 517, I cannot avoid the conclusion that there was impermissible coercion here.
V.
I would reverse and remand for a new trial. In the light of two legal questions that by any stretch of the imagination have to be treated as close, a weak Government case, one hung jury, and one temporarily hung jury, a new trial for appellant seems to me to be just as desirable in the overall interests of justice, as it did at the time this case was heard, like any other, by a panel of this court.

. Relevancy in the sense used in Fed.R.Evid. 401 was frequently called, in pre-Federal Rules days, “logical relevancy,” which was then contrasted with “legal relevancy,” a term referring to the balancing process now incorporated in Fed.R.Evid. 403. See, e. g., Cotton v. United States, 361 F.2d 673, 676 (8th Cir. 1966); Hoag v. Wright, 34 App.Div. 260, 266, 54 N.Y.S. 658, 662 (1898). See generally McCormick’s Handbook of the Law of Evidence § 185 (2d ed. E. Cleary 1972).

. Early in his interrogation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Simon was given reason to believe that the FBI wanted him to implicate appellant. FBI Agent McLaughlin showed Simon bank surveillance photographs of the robber with the white coat and hat and said, apparently in the first mention of appellant’s name in this case, “That’s Cecil Robinson.” Simon at the time said, “No,” but he later changed his mind after being asked if the robber in question was one Corley, a person whom Simon, according to his testimony, desired to protect because of his innocence. Later that day, however, Simon failed to implicate appellant in an interview with an Assistant United States Attorney.
Simon had strong motivation to testify about appellant in a manner that would ensure appellant’s conviction. Simon had received an 18-year sentence from Judge Duffy for his part in the bank robbery, and he had a motion to reduce sentence, pursuant to Fed. R.Crim.P. 35, pending before the judge at the time he testified. He stated at appellant’s retrial his understanding that the Assistant United States Attorney prosecuting appellant would be telling Judge Duffy whether he (the prosecutor) was satisfied with Simon’s testimony.
Finally, it should be noted that Simon was hardly the type of person who would have strong moral scruples against testifying falsely. In addition to his bank robbery conviction, he had earlier weapons and narcotics convictions, had violated the terms of bail and of conditional discharge, and had used and sold heroin. At the time of appellant’s retrial, Simon had spent 12 of his 29 years in custody.

. It is of course true that certain other factors tended to link appellant to the crime, factors that would not have been present for other individuals who own .38 caliber guns. But these factors do not and cannot make the gun evidence more probative of appellant’s opportunity, for then we would assume the conclusion in the minor premise; we would in effect be asserting that the gun evidence shows that appellant had the opportunity to commit the crime because other evidence shows that he did commit the crime.

. The Campanile court, in admitting the gun evidence, noted that it “was on the borderline of admissibility in view of its tendency to create unfair prejudice.” 516 F.2d at 292.

. Simon did not testify that Robinson carried a gun in the bank; no other witness testified that the robber, whom only Simon identified as Robinson, carried a gun; the surveillance photographs showing the man Simon identified as Robinson do not show him carrying a gun.

. The majority opinion, ante, 560 F.2d at 513, quotes United States v. Ravich, 421 F.2d 1196, 1204 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 834, 91 S.Ct. 69, 27 L.Ed.2d 66 (1970), for the proposition that the jury may draw such an inference of prior possession from the fact of later possession. In context, how*522ever, this Ravich statement is plainly not meant to stand on its own, as an independent reason for admission of gun evidence, but rather is a necessary precondition to the Ra-vich holding that possession of guns prior to the robbery is evidence of opportunity to commit the crime charged. See id. The applicability of this latter aspect of Ravich to the instant case is discussed supra. In any event, it is certainly true that an inference of prior possession may be drawn from the fact of later possession. The problem, implicitly acknowledged in Ravich, see id. (noting “rather small” probative value of gun evidence), is that the inference is quite weak, as discussed in text, and is here compounded by the necessity for making a second very weak inference before the evidence can be held to have any direct bearing on the identity question.

. The majority’s reference to the problems that might arise were the juror’s name to be disclosed, ante, 560 F.2d at 516-517, is puzzling. There simply was no reason for the name to be revealed; the note’s contents could have been read to counsel by the court with the name at the bottom of the note withheld. The majority opinion also states that appellant’s counsel did not seek to have the note unsealed. Id. He did, however, make clear his belief that the sealing prejudiced his ability to act on behalf of his client. In response to the court’s request for advice as to how to answer the note, appellant’s counsel stated: “Without my knowing what is in her note, I can’t comment too intelligently, except that I believe it is premature to give an Allen charge.”