Court Opinion

ID: 9466380
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:13:59.877232+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:41.976816
License: Public Domain

WINTER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I respectfully dissent. An essential element of the crimes of which Bryant was convicted is the blank character of the converted money orders. In my view, the government failed to allege and to prove that Bryant possessed blank money orders. I would therefore reverse defendant’s convictions because each count of the indictment was legally insufficient to charge the crime of which he was convicted and the proof was legally insufficient to show a violation of the statute on which each count of the indictment was purportedly based.
I.
Defendant was convicted upon each of five counts of an indictment charging a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 500. That section consists of a number of unnumbered paragraphs, the sixth and seventh of which were added by Congress in 1972. They read:
[Sixth] Whoever embezzles, steals, or knowingly converts to his own use or to the use of another, of without authority converts or disposes of any blank money order form provided by or under the authority of the Post Office Department or Postal Service; or
[Seventh] Whoever receives or possesses any such money order form with the intent to convert it to his own use or gain or use or gain of another knowing it to have been embezzled, stolen or converted . . . [shall be fined or imprisoned]. (Italics added.)
In its brief to us, the government concedes that each count of the indictment was based upon the seventh paragraph of § 500, set forth above. The majority and I are agreed that the phrase “any such money order” in this paragraph means “any blank *804money order form” described in the preceding sixth paragraph. Yet no count of the indictment mentions a “blank money order form.” Count One is typical of them all; the rest differ only as to the dates charged and the serial number of the money order allegedly possessed. Count One charges:
That on or about [date] at Charlotte, Mecklenburg County, within the Western District of North Carolina,
WILLIAM BRYANT
did unlawfully and wilfully have in his possession, with intent to convert to his own use or gain or to the gain or use of another, U.S. Postal Money Order No. [serial number], in the amount of $300.00, made payable to Alfred M. Toland, with the purchaser shown as Edith Toland, and bearing validation plate No. 90704, which had been embezzled, stolen and converted from and out of the custody of the U.S. Postal Service, WILLIAM BRYANT well knowing at the time that the said money order had been so embezzled, stolen and converted, in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 500.
Each count thus shows on its face that it fails to charge the possession of a blank money order form. Indeed, each charges possession of a money order purportedly complete.
The majority deems the money order “blank” even after it was illegally validated, stressing that the gravamen of the crime is knowledge on the part of the possessor that the money order was “blank” when it entered illegal traffic. I think that the legislative history of the portions of § 500 with which we are concerned make it perfectly plain that the statute was intended to encompass only money orders which lacked validating and completing data. To me it would follow that the counts of the indictment must be legally insufficient, because those counts only allege possession of facially complete money orders; under the majority’s own view, the money orders ceased to be “blank” when they were filled out.
The best discussion of congressional intent is contained in Sen.Rep.No.92-1074, 92d Cong., 2 Sess. (1972), reprinted in [1972] U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News, p. 3356. The section analysis of that report states: “The seventh paragraph [of § 500 as amended by the bill] is new and covers the receipt or possession of a blank money order form with an intent of converting it for use or gain with knowledge that the form was embezzled, stolen, or converted.” [1972] U.S.Code Cong. & Admin.News at 3358 (emphasis added). Another passage from the report, id. at 3357-58, addresses the concerns that prompted Congress to amend § 500, and clearly indicates that the seventh paragraph deals only with blank money order forms:
Present section 500 of title 18, United States Code, does not proscribe illicit trafficking in blank postal money orders. Additionally, the statute does not draw within its purview the processing machines which are the media of issuance for postal money orders. H.R. 9222, as amended, will cure these two basic ills in the current statutory scheme .
The Postal Inspection Service today faces serious problems in attempting to block traffic by professional criminals in money orders stolen in blank in post office burglaries. .
******
As noted above, section 500 in its current form does not reach money order blanks. Specifically, the problem is that section 500 now contains no “possession” clause with respect to blank orders or validating equipment. Since section 500 does not now cover this criminal activity, U.S. attorneys must base prosecutions upon other statutes. Principal reliance is placed on section 641 of title 18, United States Code . . . . However, section 641 requires that the “value” of the property be demonstrated. ... In prosecutions under section 641, difficulty has been experienced in establishing, to a court’s satisfaction, the actual value of a blank money order. This feature has hindered the Government’s efforts to file *805felony charges against professional money order fences under section 641. The criminal activities of the fences are regarded as most serious in that without their active presence, burglars would find blank money orders less attractive as a burglary objective. .
Because to me the legislative history demonstrates so overwhelmingly that the seventh paragraph of § 500 proscribes only the receipt and possession of certain blank money order forms and none of the five counts of the indictment charge that defendant possessed “blank” money order forms, I think that this is a proper case for application of the rule, venerable in this circuit, that:
It is elementary that every ingredient of the crime must be charged in the bill, a general reference to the provisions of the statute being insufficient [T]he defect in this count of the indictment is by no means a technical defect, but, as the record shows, was but one expression of a fundamental misconception as to the law applicable to the offense therein charged.
Hale v. United States, 89 F.2d 578, 579-80 (4 Cir. 1937). As in Hale, the indictment in the instant case does not suffer from a mere technical insufficiency. It fails to allege activity that constitutes a criminal offense under the law cited. See also United States v. Pomponio, 517 F.2d 460, 463 (4 Cir. 1975). On the authority of these cases, I would dismiss the indictment.
An indictment must contain a “plain, concise, and definite written statement of the essential facts constituting the crime charged.” F.R.Crim.P. 7(c). The majority correctly points out that the requirement of a complete indictment ensures that the defendant is apprised of the charges against him so that he can prepare a proper defense, and serves as a bar against subsequent prosecution. But these constitute only two of the three functions served by an indictment listed by the Supreme Court in Hagner v. United States, 285 U.S. 427, 431, 52 S.Ct. 417, 419, 76 L.Ed. 861 (1932):
The true test of the sufficiency of an indictment is . whether it contains the elements of the offense intended to be charged, and ‘sufficiently apprises the defendant of what he must be prepared to meet, and ... to what extent he may plead a former acquittal or conviction.’ Cochran v. United States, 157 U.S. 286, 290, 15 S.Ct. 628, 39 L.Ed. 704, 705 (emphasis added).
It is not enough to show that the defendant in this case was not prejudiced by the form of the indictment; “The questions whether an indictment sufficiently apprises a defendant of the charges against him and whether an indictment states an offense are both conceptually and procedurally distinct.” United States v. London, 550 F.2d 206, 211 (5 Cir. 1977).
II.
Under my view of the elements required to be shown to establish guilt under the applicable portion of § 500, and, I submit, even under the majority’s view of what § 500 proscribes, I think that the proof was legally insufficient to show guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The government’s case was sketchy. Five postal money orders, made payable to Alfred M. Toland and showing the purchaser as Edith Toland, were introduced into evidence. It was shown that each money order was endorsed with Alfred M. Toland’s name on the back and that each had been cashed with a post office or merchant in Charlotte during April 1977. Blank postal money order forms bearing the same serial numbers as these forms had been stolen from Lefferts Postal Station in Brooklyn on October 30, 1973. The five forms in evidence had been validated on a machine located in Merchants Finance Station in Baltimore. That station had been burglarized with no apparent loss on March 26 or 27, 1977. The validation number on the five forms was the same as that of a validation plate which was reported missing from Clifton-Eastend station in Baltimore on April 9, 1977.
*806The only evidence linking Bryant in any way to these money orders was the testimony of a fingerprint expert, who stated that he discovered on the back of each money order the palm print of Bryant “in a writing position.” Thus, the evidence showed that Bryant endorsed the name of Alfred M. Toland on the back of each money order. But nothing in the evidence indicated that Bryant possessed a blank money order form or that he completed a blank money order form. For all that the evidence showed, the face of each money order could have been filled in with the names of the payee and the purchaser before Bryant ever came into possession of them. Thus, in my view, Bryant’s motion for a directed acquittal should have been granted.
I call attention also to the fact that the proof was legally insufficient to prove the crime even under the majority’s view of the statute. If, as the majority holds, an element of the crime is proof that the possessor of the money order had knowledge that it had “entered illegal traffic in ‘blank’ form,” there was no direct proof of that element or any other proof from which the requisite knowledge could be inferred. The motion for acquittal should have been granted under the majority’s view also.
III.
As I view this case, the government simply misconceived what the seventh paragraph of § 500 was intended to proscribe, and it was therefore deficient in drafting an indictment and in producing proof. Bryant has unquestionably committed a crime, but I think that the crime was one of forging an endorsement in violation of the second paragraph of § 500 * or of receiving stolen government property under 18 U.S.C. § 641. It was not the crime mistakenly charged in the instant case.

 18 U.S.C. § 500
[Second] Whoever forges or counterfeits . any material signature or indorsement [on any U.S. postal money order] [shall be fined or imprisoned].