Court Opinion

ID: 9465413
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 00:45:44.70978+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:10.042680
License: Public Domain

WIDENER, Circuit Judge,
concurring:
I concur in the result and in all of the opinion of the court other than part Sixth.
While an instruction was not improper which said that the law did not discourage plea bargaining, giving it the imprint of authority of the Supreme Court, I think, should be discouraged. We should make it clear that in the usual case such an instruction will be considered error warranting serious consideration, rather than giving our approval to a practice which I consider to be too dangerous to be allowed to continue.
Many commonly used instructions to juries have their roots in Supreme Court opinions, with frequent quotations of language, and now either the government or the defendant (or even plaintiff and defendant in a civil case) may call upon the Supreme Court for its public blessing in open court by way of a charge given to a jury by the trial judge. In a more localized context, it is also now possible, I suppose, to demand instructions quoting by name the various appellate courts or even the author of an opinion.
The first Chief Justice, for example, is so widely revered that I should think his name added to a jury instruction might be a significant advantage unless the other side could come up with an instruction in its theory of the case from an equally august presence. By the same token, and of even greater practical application, if one side, in its theory of the case, may quote the Supreme Court by name, but the other side, in its theory, has to depend on any other appellate court for its authority, even though the other appellate decision may be binding precedent, there is little doubt that any advantage would be to the side which ap*571parently had the imprimatur of the Supreme Court behind its position.
My point is that it is the law which trial judges give to juries, and it should not make any difference from what source it comes. When giving the source of the law may be an advantage to one side or the other, it should be avoided.
I grant that in most cases a trial judge giving the law to the jury as coming from a statute or regulation, etc., is quite innocuous, and I know of no instance in which the same has been objected to. But I think giving the name of a court or, what would follow, the name of a judge, in an instruction to a jury is a thoroughly dangerous practice and should be disapproved rather than avowed. The possibilities for mischief under the rule we announce today are limitless. On the facts of this case, however, I do feel its use was harmless rather than reversible error.