Court Opinion

ID: 9457453
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:22:21.173757+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:21.393908
License: Public Domain

BAZELON, Chief Judge
(concurring) :
I have no doubt that the critical passage in the instructions — quoted on page 996 of the court’s opinion — would not have misled the jury, if read with emphasis on “particular length of time” as opposed to “some period of time.” Given the obvious intent of the instruction and the relevant colloquy at the bench before the instructions were read, I am confident that it is highly likely that the passage was read in such a way that the jury was not misled.
I am still troubled, however, by the trial judge’s failure to give an explicit instruction that every element of the offense must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The standard of persuasion is so important at criminal trials that I consider it to be an error for the judge ever to omit such an instruction.
Given that error occurred, was it harmless? A court will always be reluctant to find that an error on the reasonable doubt standard is harmless, but because of the circumstances of this trial, I am as convinced as one can be that the error had no impact on the jury at all.
According to the charge given by the judge, the Government had to prove, first, that the cab was stolen by someone; second, that appellant used the cab in the District of Columbia; third, that appellant knew the cab was stolen; and fourth, that the cab was driven for appellant’s own profit, use or purpose. In fact, however, because of the way this case developed at trial, only the third element — whether appellant knew the cab was stolen — presented a controverted issue of fact for the jury.
Appellant made no attempt at all to controvert the first two elements — that the cab was stolen and that appellant used it in the District. And the last element — whether the cab was driven for appellant’s own profit, use or purpose— dropped out of the case because the Government’s consistent and explicit position was that if the jury believed appellant’s story, it would have to acquit. That is, the Government made no attempt to argue, as it clearly could have, that the jury might convict appellant even if they did believe his story. A very real issue might be posed whether or not appellant’s story presents a defense to a charge of unauthorized use. Apparently, however, the Government was willing to rest on its prediction that the jury would not believe appellant’s story at all. It is possible that the Government shared the trial judge’s misapprehension about the law of unauthorized use, since it made no objection when the judge charged that the jury must find that the cab was stolen and that appellant knew it was stolen. I am at a loss to discover the source of this theory, which makes it much more difficult for the Government to convict defendants of a very simple offense: using another’s automobile without his consent.
Thus the Government went to the jury on a theory that was very favorable to the defendant. Since no facts were disputed relevant to “profit, use or purpose” as a distinct issue, there was only one issue of fact for the jury: did appellant know the cab was stolen, or in other words, did they believe appellant *1000or not. The Government’s prediction was correct; the jury did not believe appellant and convicted. The jury had been amply instructed that the Government must prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt; since only one element of the crime genuinely went to the jury, the error in the reasonable doubt instruction with respect to multiple elements became harmless. Since, in addition, unauthorized use is clearly a “lesser included offense” of the nonexistent crime of knowingly using a stolen automobile, I cannot say that appellant’s “substantial rights” were infringed by the circumstances of this conviction.