Court Opinion

ID: 9455541
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:25:24.054799+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:38.206002
License: Public Domain

HAYS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I agree with Judge Kaufman that the conviction on counts three and four must be reversed. I disagree on the consequences of that reversal. In my opinion the case should be remanded for a new trial on counts two and five.
While Benton v. Maryland does not expressly rule out for all purposes the concurrent sentence doctrine, it manifests such basic dissatisfaction with the doctrine as to suggest that its total elimination merely awaits a proper case. And, as Judge Kaufman notes, the Court in Benton says that “A stronger case for total abolition of the concurrent sentence doctrine may well be made in cases on direct appeal, as compared to convictions attacked collaterally by suits for post-conviction relief.” 395 U.S. at 793, footnote 11, 89 S.Ct. at 2062.
The effect to be given Benton must, it seems to me, require a change in our rule from one providing that in the case of concurrent sentences, the questioned conviction on one count will not be considered unless it can be shown that the defendant would be prejudiced if the conviction was unjustified, see United States v. Barash, 365 F.2d 395 (2d Cir. 1966), to one providing rather that prejudice will be presumed unless it is clearly shown that in fact no prejudice would result. See United States ex rel. Weems v. Follette, 414 F.2d 417 (2d Cir.1969).
In the present ease not only do I disagree with Judge Kaufman’s view that a lighter sentence could not possibly result from a remand for resentencing, but I would go much farther than is suggested by Judge Kaufman’s opinion and would remand for a new trial on the ground that the jury may well have been influenced with respect to counts two and five by “spill over” of the evidence as to counts three and four, and by the fact that the court’s sending the evidence on counts three and four to the jury gave to the jury the right to find appellant guilty on the most tenuous evidence.
We are quick to reverse a conviction on the ground of prejudice where evidence of defendant’s commission of other crimes has been introduced. How can we consistently hold that the introduction of wholly insufficient evidence of other crimes in the present case did not unfairly prejudice defendant’s case?