Court Opinion

ID: 9650737
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 15:50:44.333025+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:25.758376
License: Public Domain

L. HAND, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I agree with all that Judge CHASE has said, and I also think that Belskin’s testimony, which was corroborated by Zeller’s testimony upon the defense, was “direct” testimony that certificates five, six and seven had not been made out in 1941. If A swears that at a stated time there was an entry in a book, and B swears that he examined the book at that time, and that the entry was not there, I submit that B has “directly” contradicted A. Belskin swore that when he saw the book only blank certificates followed the first four stubs. Had it been a solidly bound book that testimony would have “directly” contradicted Goldstein, who said that certificates five, six and seven had been made •out in 1941. I do not understand that Gold-stein disputes this; but he answers that, since the book was not solidly bound, but -of the loose-leaf kind, it was possible that at the time Belskin saw it, certificates five, •six and seven may have been removed and were later replaced. That is theoretically possible, but so would it be theoretically possible in the example I have put, that a solid book might be substituted for the occasion. We should not for that reason require two witnesses to the identity of the book; we should allow the jury to find that it was the identical book on any reliable evidence. So here, the evidence is that this was the stock book of Aetna Coated Fabrics, Inc., and the jury was free to infer that it had not been tampered with for the occasion, just as they might, had it been a solid book. Were not some such latitude permissible in determining what is a “direct” contradiction, we should in effect insist upon two witnesses to every fact in a prosecution for perjury. I can find no warrant for any such dialectical extravagance, and I think that the verdict can stand as to all four certificates.
. Judge AUGUSTUS N. HAND concurs in the foregoing opinion, as well as in the one by Judge CHASE.