Court Opinion

ID: 9639036
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 16:02:05.459247+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:11.438078
License: Public Domain

FRANK, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The Manual is more than a gloss on, or an administrative interpretation of, the statute. For it was promulgated pursuant to Article 38 of the Articles of War, 10 U.S.C.A. § 1509, which authorizes the President, by regulation, to prescribe the procedure of courts-martial, provided his regulations are not “contrary to or inconsistent with” the Articles. Thus the ^President may add to (but not subtract from) the statutory requirements. What he adds: has the force of a statute.
Article 70 of the statute, 10 U.S.C.A: § 1542, provides, “No charge will be referred to a general court martial for trial until after a thorough and impartial investigation thereof shall have been made. * * * At such investigation full opportunity shall be given to the accused to cross-examine witnesses against him if they are available. * * * If the charges are forwarded after such investigation, they shall be accompanied by a statement of the substance of the testimony taken on both sides.” 1
It is arguable that “cross-examine” means the right to be present at the direct examination. But I shall assume, arguendo, that it does not. For the Manual specifically provides that, at such investigation, each witness “will be called and examined in the presence of the accused.” Thus we have a positive legal requirement, fully as obligatory as if it were in the statute, that, in the formal investigation which is made a condition precedent of any trial, each witness must be “examined in the presence of the accused.”
It is not difficult to understand the reason why the Manual requires that the accused should be present at the examination of all the witnesses: The formal “investigation” is the equivalent of that preliminary hearing, before a magistrate, in a criminal proceeding, required in England and in some of our states, where an information is substituted for an indictment in the case of major crimes. See Orfield, Criminal Procedure from Arrest to Appeal (1947) 82-83; § 46 A.L.I. Code of Criminal Procedure; Kenny, Outlines of Criminal Law (15 Ed.1936) 533. Because in such a case there is no indictment, so that the examination before the magistrate is the sole investigation undertaken to ascertain whether there is enough evidence against the defendant to justify his being tried, “the defendant,” says Orfield, “has a right to be present at the preliminary hearing,” and this calls for “both confrontation and cross-examination * * *2 It is not enough' that the defendant has such rights at the [subsequent] -trial since one of the objects of the preliminary examination is to determine whether there is a case against the defendant which will stand up *767at the trial.”3 In England, says Kenny, “at these preliminary inquiries the presence of the accused is absolutely essential. The preliminary examination is conducted as follows: The prosecutor ‘opens his case’ by any necessary explanation. Then his witnesses are examined in chief, cross-examined and re-examined. * * * ”
In Rex v. Phillips, 31 Cox C. C. 146 (1938), the English Court of Criminal Appeals held that a conviction of the defendant Phillips must be quashed because of violation of § 17 of the Indictable Offense Act, 1848, which reads: “In all cases where any person shall appear or be brought before any justice or justices of the peace charged with any indictable of-fence * * * such justice or justices, before he or they shall commit such accused person to prison for trial, or before he or they shall admit him to bail, shall, in the presence of such accused person, who shall be at liberty to put questions to any witness produced against him, take the statement on oath or affirmation of those who shall know the facts and circumstances of the case, and shall put the same into writing, and such depositions shall be read over to and signed respectively by the witnesses who shall have been so examined, and shall be signed also by the justice or justices taking the same. * * * ”4
The Court said: “The facts as to the procedure adopted by the committing 'justices were not in dispute. Quayle was brought before the justices in December, 1937, and proceedings were continued against him alone until the 28th March, 1938, when Phillips was brought before the justices as a co-defendant with Quayle. Meanwhile thirty-five witnesses had been called and examined. Their evidence had been taken in a regular manner, in the presence of Quayle. When Phillips was brought before the court, it became necessary to recall those thirty-five witnesses in order that they might repeat their evidence, which incriminated Phillips as well as Quayle. The evidence of those thirty-five witnesses related to the charges which were subsequently embodied in counts 1 to 7 (inclusive). Instead of examining each witness anew in the presence of Phillips, the justices took a course which it was thought would result in a saving of time. Each witness’s deposition was read over to him and he was then asked whether it was correct. The answer was always in the affirmative so that there appeared at the end of each witness’s deposition the signed statement: ‘My deposition has been read over to me and it is correct.’ .The appellant Phillips was then given the opportunity, such as it was, of cross-examining the witness whose evidence he had heard given in that summary and compendious form. We have no doubt that this procedure, however convenient it may have seemed to be, was irregular and contrary to law. * * * The terms of sect. 17 of the Indictable Offences Act, 1948, are imperative, and if they are complied with the accused person hears the witness' give his evidence, so that he is able to object to any question that may be put improperly and to see that the oral evidence is recorded in writing with accuracy and fairness. * * * It was said at the Bar that the practice which was adopted by the magistrates in the present case is common, if not general. We cannot, however, regard this fact, if fact it be, as a reason for approving or condoning an irregularity which well may be prejudicial to an ac*768cused person. In the circumstances we think it right that the conviction of Phillips on counts 1 to 7 should be quashed.”
I think we should hold similarly here, For I think the deviation from the requirement of the Manual was so substantial as to deprive the court-martial of jurisdiction. See Smith v. Hiatt, 3 Cir., 170 F.2d 61; Hicks v. Hiatt, D.C., 64 F.Supp. 238.
My colleagues suggest that to apply here the reasoning of the English court in Rex v. Phillips, supra — i. e., to require the presence of the accused not only at the cross-examination, but during the direct examination, of each witness in the preliminary examination — would .have an absurd result since, my colleagues say, it would forbid “reducing any witness’ testimony to written form in advance of trial, or indeed even examining him orally.” Clearly no such result follows: Thus in Rex v. Phillips, supra, the court cited and relied upon the earlier case of Rex v. Gee, 30 Cox C. C. 432; there the court quashed convictions for an irregularity in the preliminary hearing before the committing magistrates, but said that it was proper for the Chief Constable, previous to that preliminary hearing, to interview the witnesses and to take statements from them. Of course the defendant here could not have complained had the investigating officer interviewed the witness or taken a statement from her, provided the officer, at the investigation, had then taken her direct testimony in the presence of the defendant. But here the investigating officer used her direct testimony as the basis of what the statute describes as “a statement of the substance of the testimony” which (so the statute commands) is to accompany the charges,” if any “charges are forwarded after” that formal “investigation,” without which a court-martial cannot be held. The “statement o-f the substance of the testimony” so “forwarded” is thus an essential prerequisite of the trial; and that testimony must not, under the Manual, consist of the testimony of a witness who has testified in the absence of the accused.5

 its entirety, the pertinent portion of the statute reads:
“ 10 U.S.C.A. § 1542. Charges; action upon (article 70)
“Charges and specifications must be signed by a person subject tp militai-y law, and Under oath either that he has personal knowledge of, or has investigated, .the matters set forth therein, and that the same are true in fact, to the best of his knowledge and belief. No charge will be referred to .a general court martial for trial until after a thorough and impartial investigation thereof shall have been made. This investigation will include inquiries as to the truth of the matter set forth in said charges, form of charges, and what disposition of the case should be made in the interest of justice and discipline. At such investigation full opportunity shall be given to the accused to cross-examine witnesses against him if they are available and to present anything he may desire in his own behalf either in defense or mitigation, and the investigating officer shall examine available witnesses requested by the accused. If the charges are forwarded after such investigation, they shall be accompanied by a statement of the substance of the testimony taken on both sides.”

 See State v. McLain, 13 N.D. 368, 102 N.W. 407, 408.
See Comments (p. 287 ff.) on § 46 of the A. L. I. Code which show the numerous state statutes requiring that, in the preliminary examination, all witnesses shall be both examined and cross-examined “in the presence of the accused.”

 See Thies v. State, 178 Wis. 98, 189 N.W. 539, 541: “Since the adoption of the amendment of 1870, a presentment or an indictment by a grand jury has been the exceptional proceeding and by far the greater number of prosecutions in eases of felony have been by information rather than by indictment. The object or purpose of the ■ preliminary investigation is to prevent hasty, malicious, improvident, and oppressive prosecutions, to protect the pei'son charged from open and public accusations of crime, to avoid both for the defendant and the public the expense of a public trial, and to save the defendant from the humiliation and anxiety involved in public prosecution, and to discover whether or not there are substantial grounds upon which a prosecution may be based.”

 Emphasis added.
In Rex v. Gee, 30 Cox C. C. 432, 436, the court noted that since 1933 (raider the Administration of Justice Act, 1933) “a commital by magistrates is substituted for presentment by the grand jury. * * * »

 Appellee advances an argument to which my colleagues apparently give no weight, since they do not mention it. This argument rests on the fact that the provision in the Manual requiring the presence of the accused is preceded by the following language: “What follows in this Paragraph (35a.) is primarily intended to indicate a proper procedure in the more usual cases. Variations to save labor, time, or expense, or designed to meet other cases, or exceptional or local conditions, or for any other good reason, are not only permissible but should be adopted, providing the spirit and purpose of the statutory requirements quoted above are carried out.” Appellee contends that the investigating officer properly decided that (I quote appellee’s brief) ‘ “the refusal of the witness ‘Susie’ to make her statement in the presence of the accused” created an “unusual” case which gave that officer the power to take her testimony in the defendant’s absence. Surely that contention is untenable. It would mean that any case would be “unusual” where the presence of the accused might deter a witness from testifying. It would thus destroy the reason for the requirement.