Court Opinion

ID: 9460018
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:37:39.472402+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:25.892561
License: Public Domain

OAKES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I dissent.
I believe Wyler was substantially prejudiced by being tried with other members of the conspiracy. He had timely moved for a severance ,six months before trial and renewed the motion subsequently. While Wyler may have been a participant in the overall conspiracy, his participation was so quantitatively, if not qualitatively, different from that of the codefendants, at least six of whom were wholesalers and all of whom had major roles, that he would invariably be prejudiced in a trial with them. Indeed, with the exception of one instance where he acted as a runner or go-between in a small sale, Wyler’s purchases could as well have been for his own consumption, given the evidence. Of the codefendants who testified, none knew Wyler. With a severance he would have been able to examine all of them. This is precisely the kind of case where Mr. Justice Jackson’s remarks on conspiracy trials in Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U.S. 440, 446, 69 S.Ct. 716, 93 L.Ed. 790 (1949) (Jackson, J., concurring), which have *175been quoted so often that they do not need repetition here, still apply. A separate trial, the trial court acknowledges, would have taken only two days.
I also think the trial court should have subpoenaed both Lucretia Lum and Nash. Washington v. Texas, 388 U.S. 14, 87 S.Ct. 1920, 18 L.Ed.2d 1019 (1967). The majority states that “there was no particular assurance” that Lum could have testified favorably to Wyler. It goes on to say that because Wyler, representing himself pro se, had made unjustified requests for subpoenas earlier, the trial judge did not abuse his discretion in concluding “there was no reasonable certainty that Miss Lum would testify in a manner helpful to Wyler.” I do not agree. The offer of proof was explicit, relevant and important — that Lum would testify that Wy-ler was not the “Bobby the Italian” referred to by the prosecution witnesses, and perhaps knew who the real “Bobby the Italian” was; that she was very close to Jesus Torrado, the boss of the narcotics chain conspiracy, and hence had reason to know this. There was no question that she was involved in some way with this organization and had indeed testified both in a rape case against Estrada and Gomez, two of the conspirators, and in a narcotics prosecution against her. As for Nash, while perhaps the offer of proof was not explicit, the Government, having alleged that Nash was a coconspirator, should not be permitted to deny the relevance of his testimony as one of the alleged co-conspirators. Since the Government itself named him as a coconspirator, the burden should be on it to show the irrelevancy of Nash’s testimony.
The evidence of Wyler’s involvement in the conspiracy was in any event thin at best. He received a ten year sentence. Because I think he was deprived of due process of law by the denial of his motion to sever and his sixth amendment right to call witnesses in his own behalf, I dissent from the affirmance of his conviction.