Court Opinion

ID: 9709674
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 03:52:53.786075+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:22:50.765676
License: Public Domain

NEWMAN, Chief Judge,
dissenting:
This case illustrates the irrational framework described in Michelson v. United States, 335 U.S. 469, 69 S.Ct. 213, 93 L.Ed. 168 (1948). The majority fails to address this quirk and therefore I must respectfully dissent. Pursuant to what the Michelson Court itself described as a “grotesque *439framework” a witness may not testify about his own opinion of the defendant, an opinion arrived at by independent observation of and personal interaction with the appellant. Michelson, 335 U.S. at 477, 69 S.Ct. at 219. Rather the witness in his role as a reporter of the community sentiment, may only “summarize what he has heard in the community” or testify “as to the shadow [the appellant’s] daily life has cast in the neighborhood.” Id. at 477, 69 S.Ct. at 219. The witness is placed in the anomalous position of testifying about what he perceives the community to feel, a community which may be composed of persons who are less well acquainted with the appellant and not what he knows as a fact.
Thus, it would have been error to ask Harold Bullock if he was personally aware of a specific bad act of the appellant. It was, however, permissible, pursuant to this nonsensical framework to question Bullock if he had heard about specific events that predated his friendship with the appellant. The Michelson Court elected not to alter this illogical system, noting that “to pull one misshapen stone out of the grotesque structure is more likely simply to upset its present balance between adverse interests than to establish a national edifice.” Michelson, supra, 335 U.S. at 486, 69 S.Ct. at 224. I submit that the misshapen stone condemns the entire structure. It is long past time for us to build a new one.