Court Opinion

ID: 9457042
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:10:48.113487+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:11.893455
License: Public Domain

PELL, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
While I fully subscribe to the well reasoned decision of Judge Kiley, because of the dissenting opinion filed thereto, I feel constrained to add these words of concurrence.
Trial lawyers devote countless hours to the subject of factors influencing jury verdicts. Some of this time is in the nature of observation based on experience, some educated guesses and some, of course, pure speculation.
We at the appeal level should not speculate as to what a particular jury, or juror, might have done under other circumstances. Neither on the other hand, however, should we speculate that some trial procedure with a highly prejudicial potential might not have realized its potential. One form of speculation is as undesirable as the other.
I require no unrealistic flight of the imagination to conceive jury discussion to the effect that if Matos really thought that he should take the watch to the platform office, without telling anyone en route, he certainly would have explained the whole situation when confronted by the postal inspectors.
*1075It would take only one juror to say persuasively to the other members of the panel, “But who can believe he was innocent when he refused to make a statement when he had a chance? I don’t believe any of his testimony. It’s all something he, or somebody, thought up for this trial.”
It is sufficient in my opinion that a factual situation existed which made possible such a statement, whether in fact it was or was not made.
'Harmless error should never be predicated upon speculation.