Court Opinion

ID: 9448107
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:23:33.177528+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:17.782863
License: Public Domain

HUTCHESON, Circuit Judge
(concurring specially).
I concur in the result in this case as to both appeals. I do so, however, with considerable misgivings. This is because the case in its particulars seems to present the theory of fair play in a criminal investigation and prosecution as though it were a one way street, instead of presenting it as it is, a two way street. I am the more troubled because it seems to me that both state and federal courts are making it increasingly more difficult to obtain a conviction in the present climate of opinion which so over-emphasizes and slants in the defendant’s favor the social and ethical requirements of criminal investigation and prosecution as to almost completely overlook the at least equal good of bringing a criminal to justice.
After all, as Madison tells us: “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the first difficulty lies in this, we must enable the government to control the governed”; and if, by over accentuation of so called fair play toward the defendant, we make it more and more difficult, if not impossible, to convict the guilty, we fail in the first end of government. It is true that, as Madison tells us: “We must, in the second place, oblige the government to control itself”; and we should permit nothing which deprives the citizen of his substantial constitutional rights to fair play. However, the question at issue in this case, in respect to what defendant's real rights are, is a very difficult and delicate one which requires the most careful consideration.
A recent article by Professor Fred E. Inbau, in the Northwestern University “Tri-Quarterly”, Vol. 3, No. 2, 1961, discusses and deals very well with the general problem presented here. I cite, and quote from, it with full approval. It begins:
“To what extent can criminal investigators and prosecuting attorneys function effectively, if at all, within the ‘fair play’ concept that is so characteristic of the American way of life? How much individual civil liberties can we grant to all persons and still maintain the degree of public safety and security necessary for our collective existence and enjoyment?”
This particular case just decided by us, as well in what is not decided as in what is decided, brings this particular question strongly to the fore. Certainly *609no one could quarrel with the view that in a real case of deliberate suppression and concealment by the prosecution of evidence establishing the defendant’s innocence, must be condemned and prevented. When, however, as here, the matter under discussion does not in any way establish defendant’s innocence but merely goes to an attack upon the credibility of one of the witnesses against him, it does seem to me that an otherwise good principle is being run entirely into the ground. Perhaps the basic trouble in cases like the one here is that (instead of, as is required in International Law, where a case is sought to be made of an injustice done to the claimant, the primary emphasis is on proving that an injustice was in fact done him; that, in short, he was not guilty of the crime charged against him) the courts and the prosecution are so concerned with questions of fair play from a purely technical standpoint as to lose sight entirely of the primary question whether the defendant, in whose interest these questions of fair play are raised, is in fact innocent. It may well be that when a defendant seeks to invoke in his favor these ideas of fair play, he must first lay the predicate of showing his innocence of the crime charged. As it is, his hands may be red with blood and his guilt may shriek to high heaven but if he can invoke some of these overattenuated and highly technical ideas of theoretical fair play, he may escape altogether the consequences of his crime.
I concur in the result in this case for two reasons, (1) the law seems to be pretty definitely written that way, and I cannot find authority to take a different view; and (2) the matter complained of does come very close to suppression of material facts, even though on its face it seems to be merely speculation as to whether the facts are or are not material.