Court Opinion

ID: 9448594
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:41:02.980598+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:30.072427
License: Public Domain

SCHNACKENBERG, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
With characteristic thoroughness, Judge SWYGERT has ascertained that the trial judge, during a lengthy jury trial, asked 1210 questions of witnesses. We may all agree (and we have held, in United States v. Carmel, 7 Cir., 267 F.2d 345, 350), a trial judge would ordinarily do well to forego such intrusion, and where, as in Carmel, 347, we are convinced that all of the evidence in the record presents a close case to the jury for decision, we will reverse a conviction and remand for a new trial. On the other hand Judge SWYGERT relies, not only on Carmel, but upon Gomila v. United States, 5 Cir., 146 F.2d 372 (which we also considered in Carmel, 267 F.2d 350). But the Fifth Circuit limited the application of Gomila in Pasqua v. United States, 146 F.2d 522 at 523, cert. denied 325 U.S. 855, 65 S.Ct. 1183, 89 L.Ed. 1976, when it said:
“The record discloses that the trial judge from time to time would break in and interrupt questions being propounded to the witnesses both by counsel for the Government and for the defendants. This line of questioning appears throughout the trial and until the conclusion of the evidence. This practice of the court was highly improper, as it prevented an orderly trial of the case. However, we do not find that such "practice by the trial judge constitutes prejudicial error in this case. A similar practice of the court in the case of Gomila v. United States, 5 Cir., 146 F.2d 372, recently decided, cumulated with other errors discussed therein, was held to be prejudicial. In that case the testimony connecting the appellants with the crime charged was almost wholly that of confessed accomplices, uncorroborated. Here the testimony establishing the guilt of the appellants is uncontradicted and of a nature to leave no room for doubt as to the guilt of appellants. Under such condition, the error of the trial judge was not prejudicial. * * * ”
(Italics supplied.)
This distinction applies forcibly to the case at bar. The jury had before it the evidence of 26 witnesses for the govern*300ment — 18 of whom confided in defendant’s representations of fact and invested their savings with him — as well as 6 disinterested executives and agents of nationally-known corporations, all of which testimony clearly branded as false defendant’s representations to the persons whose monies he thereby obtained.
It is clear that this is not a close case, as was Carmel. It is also clear that this is a case which falls within the ruling of the Fifth Circuit in Pasqua, which said that the testimony was of a nature to leave no room for doubt as to the defendant's guilt, causing that appeals court to hold that the intrusion of the trial court at the trial was not prejudicial. I agree with the language used by the Fifth Circuit in Pasqua, 146 F.2d at 624, that the guilt of the defendant "is so overwhelmingly shown by the record that we think the administration of justice does not require us to take notice of such errors.”
I would affirm.