Court Opinion

ID: 9466504
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:18:08.758675+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:46.693272
License: Public Domain

ADAMS, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The majority’s discussion regarding the constitutional aspects of venue obscures the wholly factual nature of the primary issue in dispute, namely is there sufficient evidence in the record, taking the view most favorable to the prosecution, to support a finding that venue was properly established?
Except where venue or proof of venue has been waived, the government bears the burden of proving that criminal activity took place in the district where the prosecution is undertaken.1 It is well-settled, however, that venue need not be established beyond a reasonable doubt but may be proved by a preponderance of the evidence.2 Moreover, the absence of direct proof of venue will not defeat a conviction when circumstantial evidence affords a reasonable inference that the criminal activity occurred at the place alleged.3 “If upon the whole evidence it may be inferred that the crime was committed where the venue was laid, that is sufficient.” 4
In reviewing a verdict of guilty, an appellate court’s function is carefully circumscribed. Our responsibility is not to substitute findings we would have made had we been the fact-finding tribunal, but rather to determine simply whether the finding in question is supported by the evidence considered as a whole, “taking the view most favorable to the government.”5' Accordingly, our task in this appeal is to ascertain whether evidence in the record, when viewed in the light most favorable to the government, supports the inference that Passodelis engaged in criminal activity in the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
The majority recognizes the presence of evidence that Passodelis himself admitted to the F.B.I. that “he either personally hand carried the checks to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania [in the Middle District], or provided them to Mr. Seymore Heyison for transmittal to the Shapp for President Committee . in Harrisburg.”6 It is likewise undisputed that these checks, payable to the Shapp for President Committee, were in fact delivered in Harrisburg and duly processed there. If Passodelis personally carried the checks to Harrisburg, venue in the Middle District obviously was proper. Even if Passodelis provided the checks to Heyison “for transmittal to the Shapp for President Committee” in Harrisburg, however, Heyison’s actions, if done in Passodelis’s behalf, would fairly be attributable to Passodelis. In either case, then, venue would have been proper in the Middle District.
The majority apparently concedes that if Heyison was acting in Passodelis’s behalf, the acts of Heyison in the Middle District would be attributable to Passodelis. The majority nevertheless reverses the judgment of the district court, effectively directing in its place a verdict of acquittal, on the ground that “there are no facts in the *980record which will support the conclusion that Heyison was an agent of Passodelis’s.” 7 But Passodelis admitted, as the majority itself recognizes, that if he did not personally carry the checks to Harrisburg, he provided them to Heyison “for transmittal to the Shapp for President Committee in Harrisburg.” I, for one, am unable to understand how the majority can deny that, taking the view most favorable to the government, this admission does not at least afford the inference that if Heyison rather than Passodelis delivered the checks to Harrisburg, he did so with Passodelis’s consent and on behalf of Passodelis.8 Indeed, if the majority is right, the uncertainty as to whether Passodelis or Heyison brought the checks to Harrisburg might render venue improper in either the Middle. District or the Western District of Pennsylvania.
Because I believe that there is adequate evidence in the record to support a finding that venue was properly established in the Middle District, I dissent.9

. Fed.Rule Crim.P. 18.

. E. g., United States v. Panebianco, 543 F.2d 447 (2d Cir. 1976); United States v. Lisowiski, 504 F.2d 1268 (7th Cir. 1974); United States v. Haley, 500 F.2d 302 (8th Cir. 1974); United States v. Powell, 498 F.2d 890 (9th Cir. 1974); United States v. Luton, 486 F.2d 1021 (5th Cir. 1973).

. E. g., United States v. Powell, 498 F.2d 890 (9th Cir. 1974); United States v. Luton, 486 F.2d 1021 (5th Cir. 1974); United States v. Aldridge, 484 F.2d 655 (7th Cir. 1973).

. Weaver v. United States, 298 F.2d 496, 498 (5th Cir. 1962).

. Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 80, 62 S.Ct. 457, 469, 86 L.Ed. 680 (1942); United States v. Shoup, 608 F.2d 950, 955 (3rd Cir. 1979); United States v. Bycer, 593 F.2d 549, 551 (3d Cir. 1979).

. Emphasis added.

. Emphasis added.
The majority contends that “[i]n fact, if anything, it would appear that if Heyison received the checks in the Western District from Passodelis, he did so in his capacity as an agent of the Shapp for President Committee.” (emphasis added). The only evidence in the record regarding Heyison’s connection with the Shapp for President Committee, however, is that Heyison invited Passodelis to attend a political function at the Governor’s mansion and asked Passodelis if the latter would be interested in having the Governor attend a cocktail party at Passodelis’s home. Record at 21-22, 32-33.

. Passodelis offered no points for charge to the jury. Of the instructions proposed by the Government, No. 19, “Agent of the Accused,” expressly stated:
It is not necessary to prove that the accused personally did every act constituting the offense charged.
As a general rule, whatever any person is legally capable of doing himself, he can do through another as his agent. So, if the acts or conduct of an employee or other agent are willfully ordered or directed, or willfully authorized or consented to by the accused, then the law holds the accused responsible for such acts or conduct the same as if personally done by the accused.
(citing Federal Jury Practice and Instructions § 12.07 (3d ed. 1977)).

. Of course, if the campaign contributions could not have been “made” before they were “accepted” by the Shapp for President Committee or “deposited” by the Committee, or both, then there would be no question here that venue was proper in the Middle District. Although this Court in United States v. Hankin, 607 F.2d 611 (3d Cir. 1979), recently held that a campaign contribution is “made” before it is “accepted,” candor requires one to note that I remain troubled by that decision.
Inasmuch as the majority has not addressed the other issues raised by Passodelis on appeal, it would serve no purpose for me to do so here, except to say that I believe they are without merit.