Court Opinion

ID: 9676435
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-24 05:24:33.749292+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:16:48.642686
License: Public Domain

HENDERSON, Justice
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
I agree with the majority opinion in all respects save one: Reversal is warranted because the jury was not instructed that the State’s charts were not, in themselves, evidence.
As the majority notes, cautionary instructions regarding the charts were not requested below, and none were given. Our consideration of this matter should not end there, however. Under SDCL 23A-44-15, this Court may recognize plain errors affecting substantial rights even when such errors are not brought to the attention of a court. See State v. Brammer, 304 N.W.2d 111, 114 (S.D.1981). This Court may notice, on appeal, defects affecting substantial rights although a defendant fails to properly preserve such defects for appeal. State v. Bunnell, 324 N.W.2d 418, 420-21 (S.D.1982). The magnitude of the error in failing to instruct the jury was grave, as the United States Supreme Court has unanimously observed:
There is great danger that the jury may assume that once the Government has established the figures in its net worth computations, the crime of tax evasion automatically follows. The possibility of this increases where the jury, without guarding instructions, is allowed to take into the jury room the various charts summarizing the computations; bare figures have a way of acquiring an existence of their own, independent of the evidence which gave rise to them.
Holland v. United States, 348 U.S. 121, 127-28, 75 S.Ct. 127, 131, 99 L.Ed. 150, 160 (1954) (emphasis supplied). Guarding instructions that charts are not evidence also serve to neutralize prejudicial effects of conclusory headings on summary charts, a problem vividly at hand where conclusory headings demonstrated that Karras under-reported sales. This was the crux of the State’s case. See United States v. Stephens, 779 F.2d 232, 239 (5th Cir.1985). “Under Reported Sales” and “Percent of Under Reporting” were column headings on Exhibits 134 and 135. Also, Exhibit 143 included “Funds from Unknown/Illegal Sources.” Such captions were disapproved in Lloyd v. United States, 226 F.2d 9, 17 (5th Cir.1955). Use of these captions added to the already great danger inherent in the use of charts.
The majority holds that, when viewed as a whole, the jury instructions were adequate. This is unsound. It is true that Instruction No. 12A directed the jury to determine the reliability of the State’s figures regarding costs of goods sold, percentage, average costs of raw products, and menu prices; however, summary charts were never mentioned. How can a cautionary instruction on charts be read into instructions which do not mention charts? Karras is thus engulfed in a morass of generalities of law. Students of the law may easily be confused or misled in generalizations rather than in specific observations. Specific observations can be tested and weighed and meditated upon. In the *219enclosure of a particularity, out comes the honey from the beehive. The general holding that instructions when read as a whole may adequately inform the jury, is inappo-site here. It’s more beehive than honey. Particularity is lost. As the above-quoted passage in Holland indicates, the danger of summary charts is that they reinforce and magnify the validity of government data and calculations as if the charts themselves were additional evidence. The jury instructions, although stressing reliability, did not address the separate problem presented by charts. This zeroes in on Karras’ poignant advocacy that he had a “trial by chart.” I agree.
In summation, although these charts might have been admissible as summaries of the State’s position if guarding instructions were used, I would hold that failure to give such instructions was plain error under Holland.