Court Opinion

ID: 9459735
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:30:36.087353+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:19.107226
License: Public Domain

GIBBONS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
Appellant Bryan and a co-defendant, Echols, were tried in a nomjury trial in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on a two-count indictment. The first count charges that Echols stole 950 cases of scotch whiskey from Pier 80 in South Philadelphia, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 659. The second count incorporates by reference the allegations of the first count, and then charges that Bryan aided and abetted Echols in committing the offense alleged in the first count, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2 and § 659. The district court found Echols not guilty on count one because it had “. . . considerable difficulty in concluding beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant Echols had the required criminal intent.” The court, however, found Bryan guilty on the second count. Thus, the case is before us in the posture that the principal named in the indictment has been found not guilty of the offense charged, while the aider and abettor has been found guilty of having aided and abetted that same principal in committing the same offense.
Bryan contends that the acquittal of Echols, the named principal, requires his acquittal as an aider and abettor. It is, of course, clear that a defendant may be convicted as an aider and abettor when the principal has not been convicted, has not even been charged, or may be unknown. E. g., Feldstein v. United States, 429 F.2d 1092 (9th Cir.), cert. denied, 400 U.S. 920, 91 S.Ct. 174, 27 L.Ed.2d 159 (1970); Pigman v. United States, 407 F.2d 237 (8th Cir. 1969); United States v. Provenzano, 334 F.2d 678, 691 (3d Cir.), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 947, 85 S.Ct. 440, 13 L.Ed.2d 544 (1964); Hendrix v. United States, 327 F.2d 971 (5th Cir. 1964). It is also clear, however, that one charged solely as an aider and abettor can not be convicted absent proof that some principal committed the substantive offense. See, e. g., United States v. Rodgers, 419 F.2d 1315 (10th Cir. 1969); United States v. Provenzano, supra, 334 F.2d at 691; Edwards v. United States, 286 F.2d 681 (5th Cir. 1960). The only substantive offense charged in the indictment was that of Echols. Echols having been acquitted, Bryan urges that the substantive crime charged in the indictment was not proved.
The Government responds to Bryan’s contention that although Echols was acquitted for lack of guilty knowledge, the evidence tends to show that he was in fact acting as an unwitting agent for an unknown, or at least unnamed, principal engaged in an attempted theft of the whiskey. See, e. g., Boushea v. United States, 173 F.2d 131, 134 (8th Cir. 1949); Beausoliel v. United States, 71 U.S.App.D.C. 111, 107 F.2d 292, 297 (1939).
The significance of many of the common law distinctions between principals and accessories, between accessories before and after the fact, and between principals and aiders and abettors, have been abolished by statutes such as 18 U.S.C. § 2, which make aiders and abettors *98punishable as principals.1 See 4 F. Wharton, Criminal Law and Procedure §§ 1789-92 (1957). If the grand jury had indicted Bryan as a principal, proof that he aided and abetted would suffice to convict. E. g., Nye & Nissen v. United States, 336 U.S. 613, 69 S.Ct. 766, 93 L.Ed. 919 (1949) ; Hendrix v. United States, supra, 327 F.2d at 975; Swanne Soon Young Pang v. United States, 209 F.2d 245 (9th Cir. 1953). If, without naming a specific principal, an indictment charged him as an aider and abettor, proof that he aided and abetted anyone who may have committed the substantive offense would suffice to convict. United States v. Provenzano, supra 334 F.2d at 691. But where the grand jury has charged that a specific person committed the substantive offense and that the defendant aided and abetted that specific person, a different problem is presented.
The problem is not so much that the acquittal of the so-called principal requires the acquittal of the aider and abettor. Under statutes such as 18 U.S.C. § 2, the aider and abettor is in law guilty of the substantive offense to the same extent as the so-called principal. The offense of each is complete in itself without the dependency of one on the other. See, e. g., Regina v. Wallis, 1 Salk, 334, 91 Eng.Rep. 294 (1703); Yon Patzoll v. United States, 163 F.2d 216 (10th Cir.), cert. denied, 332 U.S. 809, 92 L.Ed. 386 (1947); 4 F. Wharton, Criminal Law and Procedure §§ 1789-92 (1957); G. Williams, Criminal Law § 66 (1953). The complicating factor is that clause of the Fifth Amendment requiring indictment by a grand jury for infamous crimes. The crime with which Bryan is charged falls within that clause, Fed.R.Crim.P. 7, and if the grand jury charges one offense, the trial court may not try another. Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212, 80 S.Ct. 270, 4 L.Ed.2d 252 (1960); Ex parte Bain, 121 U.S. 1, 7 S.Ct. 781, 30 L.Ed. 849 (1887). The grand jury did not indict Bryan as a principal. It did not indict him as an aider and abettor of persons unknown. It indicted him as an aider and abettor of a specific named principal. The Government in response to a motion for a bill of particulars reiterated that Echols was the thief who stole the whiskey with an intent to convert it to his own use and that Bryan aided and abetted Echols by supplying the means by which Echols converted the whiskey to Echols’ own use. Bryan has been convicted, however, on evidence which does not establish beyond a reasonable doubt that the specific principal named in the indictment and in the bill of particulars committed the offense. The district court may not convict him of being an aider and abettor on the basis of evidence relevant only to a charge of being a principal; a charge for which he was not indicted.
Keeping in mind the language of both the indictment and the bill of particulars, and putting myself in the position of Bryan’s trial attorney, the tactical decision not to offer Bryan’s testimony seems eminently sound. Bryan did not have the burden of persuading the court that he hadn’t committed a theft. The Government had the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt the one offense with which he was charged in the indictment. The Government attempted to prove not that persons unknown committed a theft, or that Bryan committed a theft, but that Echols committed a theft to which Bryan was an aider and abettor. The Government’s proof on Echols’ theft was insufficient to withstand a motion. Now, after the ease is closed, and after Bryan has lost the opportunity to testify in his own behalf, the majority sustains the conviction on a theory that the grand jury did not consider, that the Government’s case did not present, and of which neither before *99nor during the trial was Bryan given notice.
The proper course in this case is suggested by the recent opinion of Judge Sobeloff in United States v. Shuford, 454 F.2d 772 (4th Cir. 1971). That case involved not an outright acquittal of the named principal, but the grant of a new trial. With respect to a codefendant charged only as an aider and abettor, he wrote:
“However, the peculiar circumstances of the case prevent us from affirming Jordan’s conviction at this time. As the indictment and the evidence at trial show, Jordan’s involvement with the substantive crime charged was that of an aider and abettor of Shu-ford as principal. It is an accepted rule that where the only potential principal has been acquitted, no crime has been established and the conviction of an aider and abettor cannot be sustained. Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, 373 U.S. 262, 83 S.Ct. 1130, 10 L.Ed.2d 335 (1963). This rule, undeviatingly followed for generations, would be offended if on retrial, Shuford, the principal, should be acquitted and the conviction were allowed to stand as to Jordan, the aider and abettor. We therefore vacate Jordan’s conviction on the substantive count, under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2 and 1001, contingent upon Shuford’s conviction, at his retrial, of the substantive offense charged.” Id. at 779 (footnote omitted).
Judge Sobeloff’s approach obviously seems to the majority unduly technical. Certainly the majority opinion abounds with evidence of impatience with “semantic difficulties” and “archaic common law distinctions.” But semantic differences and legal distinctions are the essence of a system of justice which imposes upon the Government the obligations of obtaining from a grand jury an indictment for a specific charge and of proving that charge beyond a reasonable doubt. Administration of a technical and often semantical criminal justice system is the price we pay for the bal-anee struck in the Constitution between the federal government and the individual defendant. I would reverse.
Chief Judge SEITZ and Judge ALDI-SERT concur in this dissent.

. This is made clear by the legislative background of the revision of this section which determined the present statutory language. A synopsis of the legislative history is found in Swanne Soon Young Pang v. United States, 209 F.2d 245, 246 (9th Cir. 1953).