Court Opinion

ID: 9451549
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:19:25.476988+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:32:47.619633
License: Public Domain

HAYS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I would reverse our previous opinion and send the case back for a new trial. Whenever a jury, acting pursuant to a federal statute, is to decide guilt or innocence in a capital case, and is accorded the responsibility of choosing between death and life imprisonment as the punishment to be imposed, the course of enlightened and efficient administration of the criminal law will best be served by requiring a two-stage trial.
In our original panel opinion we held that “the failure of the defendant to object to the unitary trial at the outset” precluded a finding of reversible error. Our attention has now been called to the following statement of Curry’s counsel:
“Now, may I ask you not [now?] to give it further consideration or do you believe any further consideration is necessary at this time with regard to the problems that you stated the other day that occurred to you, arising out of my motion to dismiss the indictment, in particular as to the question of the trial of the sentence as a possibility separate and apart from the trial of the crime.” (Emphasis added.)
However we read the word “not,” the last part of the statement indicates that counsel intended his motion as a request for separate trials. Judge Dooling was fully aware of the nature of, and reason for the request.1
*920As the close of the government’s case, appellant’s counsel said:
“It seems to me, your Honor, that the present statute which gives the jury the duty of making the decision as to whether or not there shall be capital punishment, places upon the defense a most unique and improper burden throughout the whole of the trial from the beginning of the Government’s first witness to any witnesses that we put forth. This is, I think, a very unusual situation, creating what I urge upon you is a deprivation of a fair trial.” (Emphasis added.)
These remarks must be regarded as renewing counsel’s earlier motion.
We need not decide whether a unitary trial is so unfair as to constitute a deprivation of due process. See United States ex rel. Scoleri v. Banmiller, 310 F.2d 720 (3d Cir. 1962), cert. denied, 374 U.S. 828, 83 S.Ct. 1866, 10 L.Ed.2d 1051 (1963). We need only hold that 18 U.S.C. § 2113(e) requires a two-stage trial, a first stage concerned with guilt or innocence, and, if it is determined that the defendant is guilty, a second stage to fix the penalty.
Although the majority concede that neither the statute nor the legislative history suggest any bar to such a procedural form, they leave the question of a two-stage trial to the discretion of the trial court. There is scarcely any authority to suport the majority’s conclusion. The majority cite only a dissenting opinion in Frady v. United States, 121 U.S.App.D.C. 78, 109-110, 348 F.2d 84, 115-116, cert. denied, 382 U.S. 909, 86 S.Ct. 247, 15 L.Ed.2d 160 (1965), and two student notes, The Two-Trial System in Capital Cases, 39 N.Y. U.L.Rev. 50 (1964) and Executive Clemency in Capital Cases, 39 N.Y.U.L.Rev. 136, 167 (1964). The first note, after pointing out several shortcomings in the two-stage trial provision adopted by New York, concluded that “the overall scheme of these amendments to the capital punishment law is a significant step in the direction of a worthy goal. * * * ”
Id. at 77. The second note, incidentally and without a substantiating citation, observed that California “defense counsel have often neglected to prepare adequately for the penal phase.” The Commentary to the Model Penal Code § 201.6 at 75 (Tentative Draft No. 9, 1959) concluded that the results under the California statute “are eminently satisfactory.”
The majority disregard the great weight of case and commentary authority, which calls for the establishment of a mandatory two-stage trial rule. See, e. g., Frady v. United States, 121 U.S. App.D.C. 78, 85-87, 348 F.2d 84, 91-93, particularly p. 91 n. 1, cert. denied, 382 U.S. 909, 86 S.Ct. 247, 15 L.Ed.2d 160 (1965); United States ex rel. Scoleri v. Banmiller, supra; United States ex rel. Thompson v. Price, 258 F.2d 918, 922 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 358 U.S. 922, 79 S.Ct. 295, 3 L.Ed.2d 241 (1958); Model Penal Code § 210.6 (Proposed Official Draft, May 4, 1962); 1 Wigmore, Evidence § 194b, at 660-61 (3d ed. 1940); cf. Jackson v. Denno, 378 U.S. 368, 389 n. 16, 84 S.Ct. 1774, 12 L.Ed.2d 908 (1964).
Rational determination of punishment requires that the sentencing authority have wide access to information of a mitigating nature. Judge McGowan has observed:
“[T]he jury’s deliberations upon his [the defendant’s] punishment are less than adequately informed if his right of allocution has not been meaningfully available and if facts of a mitigating nature are not before it.” Frady v. United States, supra 348 F.2d at 91-92. (McGowan, J., concurring.)
See, Model Penal Code § 210.6 (Proposed Official Draft, May 4, 1962); Knowlton, Problems of Jury Discretion in Capital Cases, 101 U.Pa.L.Rev. 1099, 1109, 1135-1136 (1953).
*921By the same token, the government should be able to apprise the jury of aggravating circumstances. Such information should not be made available to the jury prior to the resolution of the issue of innocence or guilt.
Here, the practical effect of the unitary procedure was to force the appellant to relinquish his Fifth Amendment right not to testify. Immediately prior to Curry’s taking the stand, his counsel pleaded:
“I feel that in effect this statute almost compels asking questions that I might not have asked otherwise on direct; and in particular almost compels that I put the defendant on the stand.”
*****
“I find that in this case, with the jury having that duty to decide about capital punishment, that I am — I feel that a defense counsel in this case is forced to put the defendant on the stand. I must show what he is like. I must reveal the kind of person he is.
“This is beyond the question of guilt. This goes to the question of. sentence, and since they have the power to sentence death, I must do it.” (Emphasis added.)2
3
In an analogous situation, the Supreme Court has disapproved a procedure which “may induce a defendant to remain silent,” and thus force a jury, “that is to pass on guilt or innocence as well as voluntariness,” to decide on “less than all of the relevant evidence.” Jackson v. Denno, supra 378 U.S. at 389 n. 16, 84 S.Ct. at 1787.
Wigmore, in discussing a now amended Pennsylvania unitary trial statute,3 argued:
“The only way to avoid injustice in such cases is to reserve the evidence of former convictions until after a finding of guilt on the evidence in a particular case. This purpose Is readily obtained by the California form of procedure. It is to be regretted that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania did not handle the verdict procedure flexibly, and introduce this method without waiting for legislative authority. (Our Courts are too prone to wait for legislative interference before altering their procedure, which ought to be exclusively within their own control.)” Wigmore, op. sit. supra at 661.
In United States ex rel. Thompson v. Price, supra 258 F.2d at 922, the Third Circuit expressed a strong preference for a mandatory two-stage trial rule in federal cases. Judge Hastie, concurring, went further and noted:
“A procedure which greatly magnifies this risk, practically inviting the improper use of evidence, in a capital case raises a serious issue of fundamental fairness.” Id. at 922.
In United States ex rel. Scoleri v. Banmiller, supra, the Third Circuit, sitting en banc, held a unitary trial, in Pennsylvania state courts, “so fundamentally unjust” as to amount to a denial of due process.
The Commentary to the Model Penal Code § 201.6 at 74-75 (Tentative Draft No. 9, 1959) concludes:
“There is no reason to insist upon a choice between a' method which threatens the fairness of the trial of guilt or innocence and one which detracts from the rationality of the determination of the sentence. The obvious solution, proposed by the Royal Commission on Capital Punishment, is to bifurcate the proceeding, abiding strictly by the rules of evidence until and unless there is a conviction, but *922once guilt has been determined opening the record to the further information that is relevant to sentence.”
The arguments for the two-stage trial seem to me to be so compelling and the authority supporting that procedure so weighty that I must respectfully dissent.

. During proceedings relating to the composition of the jury, Judge Dooling noted:
“If Mr. Curry, for example, offers evidence as to his background, the privations of his youth, all of the other things that would be relevant upon sentencing, then can that be met by an attempt on the part of the United States to offer evidence of previous conviction?
“Does it all suggest the possibility that maybe in such a case as this there have to be two verdicts? And whether we like it or not. does Section 1045 of the Penal Daw come in here as a matter of common law technique of trying the case on the issue of guilt first, and then sending the jury out again, perhaps with supplementary evidence on the issue of sentence, should there be a conviction on count three?” (Emphasis added).
Preceding the opening statement of the prosecution, Judge Dooling observed:
“That suggested in my mind that if there is precedent for it, and arrived at without the assistance of such statutes as Section 1040 of the New York *920Penal Law, that consideration of serially verdicts be undertaken, and that the second verdict should be restricted to the matter of sentence and be based, if need be, on additional evidence which may be apropriate.”

. At trial, Wilcoxson testified that Curry liad actively participated with him in a cold-blooded murder during the course of the robbery of the Lafayette National Bank. It was not until the government’s summation, after Curry had taken the stand, that the prosecutor announced that he was not seeking the death penalty. Even then, the jury could have imposed that penalty.

. Pennsylvania now requires a two-stage trial. Penn.Ann.Stat. UtL 18, § 4701 (1963).