Court Opinion

ID: 9842926
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 02:21:54.107111+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:14:20.016631
License: Public Domain

FEINBERG, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I would vacate the order for rehearing en banc as improvidently granted. Although the opinions of the en banc court are typically thorough and learned, the principal question they address is a simple and common one: Did the trial judge abuse his discretion in admitting evidence that the defendant possessed a gun when arrested? What, then, is the justification for the delay and burden of an en banc court? The majority opinion does not purport to announce a new rule governing the admission of evidence of weapons, since the majority says that it adheres “to the traditional formulation of the abuse of discretion standard . .” True, the majority opinion implies — although it nowhere flatly says so — • that the original panel decision of Judges Oakes and Gurfein disregarded the teachings of such earlier cases as United States v. Ravich, 421 F.2d 1196 (2d Cir. 1970). But as Judge Oakes’ en banc dissenting opinion demonstrates, the facts of Ravich were “manifestly different” from those present here. The original panel majority no more “overruled” Ravich than the en banc majority now “overrules” the warning in United States v. Campanile, 516 F.2d 288, 292 (2d Cir. 1975), that the stronger evidence there of gun possession “was on the borderline of admissibility in view of its tendency to create unfair prejudice.”1 Such questions of admissibility ordinarily depend upon the facts of the particular case and do not call for convening an en banc court, unless we regard that cumbersome procedure appropriate whenever a majority of the active judges disagree with the result reached by two of their brethren. Such a doctrine would wholly misconceive the purpose of the extraordinary en banc procedure. While the majority does not formally embrace that view, its action in compelling an en banc hearing in this routine case has that effect.
*527Following our precedent in United States v. Collins, 462 F.2d 792, 801 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 409 U.S. 988, 93 S.Ct. 343, 34 L.Ed.2d 254 (1972), I would simply vacate the petition for rehearing en banc as improvidently granted.2

. The majority opinion does not mention this statement.

. Cf. Rudolph v. United States, 370 U.S. 269, 82 S.Ct. 1277, 8 L.Ed.2d 484 (1962); Ferguson v. Moore-McCormack Lines, 352 U.S. 521, 524-58, 77 S.Ct. 457, 1 L.Ed.2d 511 (1957) (Frankfurter, J., dissenting); Stern & Gressman, Supreme Court Practice, § 5.15 at 227-30 (4th ed. 1969).