Court Opinion

ID: 9458244
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:46:09.98884+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:41.158034
License: Public Domain

MeCUNE, District Judge
(dissenting)
I respectfully dissent. It is my view that the alleged error was harmless and that the conviction should be affirmed.
The contents of the notes sent by the jury to the trial judge are set forth in the majority opinion and need not be repeated here. The jury ended the second note with this comment, “any helpful suggestion would be appreciated.” The trial judge in open court gave the jury supplemental instructions including a definition of “reasonable doubt,” reviewed some of the testimony and finally made the statement alleged to be fatal error. He said this:
“Another thing you should bear in mind is this: If this jury cannot agree, the case is going to have to be tried again. It took almost a week— did take a week — and all those witnesses are going to have to be called back to testify again. They will be subject to examination, cross-examination and so forth. So, it is not an insignificant event when a jury does not agree in a case like this. It can produce great additional expense to the government and additional — well, I think I have said enough.”
The jury knew that the case would, of necessity, be tried again if they failed to reach a verdict. It was a serious case not likely to be neglected. They knew a good deal about the expense involved. They had seen the trouble and inconvenience caused by the trial. The judge was not critical nor abusive, nor threatening nor angry. He had tried to respond to the jury’s request and he had said what was obvious and only what was obvious.
The evidence of guilt in the trial had been very strong. It was charged that Burley, along with two other men, had robbed a bank in Philadelphia and had escaped on foot with $25,535.00. They were unable to reach their ear due to approaching police officers. They split from one another and Burley attempted to seize a car from a woman whose screams attracted a bystander who came to her aid. It was charged that Burley shot the bystander with a .38 caliber revolver, the bullet passing through him and into the body of another man. As the man who was first wounded fell he grabbed the money which Burley was carrying. Burley fled on foot but was apprehended within a few blocks by a police officer. Burley had in his possession a .38 caliber revolver containing four live rounds and one empty cartridge. Burley was taken back to the bank forthwith and was identified.
During the trial Burley was identified by two bank employees and a customer as one of the robbers. He was identified by the passerby as the man who shot him. The revolver found on him by the police officer was received in evidence. There was identifiable money (bait money) in the total sum stolen *1001which had been grabbed by the bystander. It was received in evidence. Finally, a co-defendant who had pled guilty testified against Burley.
It is true that in United States v. Fioravanti, 1969, 412 F.2d 407, this court instructed trial judges not to give instructions that directed a juror to distrust his own judgment if he found a majority of the jurors taking a view different from his. It is true that this court said that such an instruction in the future would be deemed error, normally reversible error, although there were circumstances where the error might be found inconsequential.
However, in Fioravanti the instruction which was criticized was much more explicit than the one before us. There the trial judge said this, “the jury should listen with deference to arguments of fellow jurors and distrust his own judgment if he finds a large majority of the jury taking a different view of the case from that what he does himself.”
In my view telling a juror to distrust his judgment is far more serious than telling a juror that failure to come to a verdict will result in a retrial with its attendant expense because I think the juror already knows this and has already made leeway for this result in his thinking. I think most of us worry about the expense of government. We are reminded of it every day and another reminder is not shocking even though it comes from a judge during a trial. The dissenting juror may just as well have been influenced by the redefinition of “reasonable doubt” or the review of the testimony.
I think the majority seeks too great a degree of trial perfection. Even in Fioravanti the conviction for the possession of counterfeit money was affirmed although the government’s case rested largely on the testimony of a secret service agent. There are many cases where similar language by a trial court has been held harmless under the circumstances as in United States v. Tolbert, 406 F.2d 81 (7th Cir. 1969).
Frequently in talking to a jury a trial judge treads a thin line between due process and good sense. The infraction here was inconsequential in the light of the whole record.