Court Opinion

ID: 9462908
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:53:14.697723+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:50.719116
License: Public Domain

ROSENN, Circuit Judge,
would grant rehearing.
OPINION SUR DENIAL OF PETITION FOR REHEARING
ROSENN, Circuit Judge.
I believe this case merits consideration by the court en banc. The issues on which the panel vacates the sentence of the defendants DiGilio and Szwandrak have wide reaching ramifications and the Government asserts that they were neither briefed nor argued by the parties in this court.
Count II of the indictment essentially charges that the defendants “commencing on or about November 1, 1971, to on or about June 30, 1972,” in furtherance of the conspiracy charged in Count I, stole, purloined, and converted to their own use photocopies of official files of the Federal Bureau of Investigation of a value in excess of $100. This language, especially since it incorporates the conspiracy allegations of Count I charging a scheme to surreptitiously remove photocopies of official files, plainly charges a single plan to steal photocopies of official FBI files over a period of time.
The Government avers that the district court charged the jury that if the installment deliveries of documents from DiGilio’s file were made pursuant to a single criminal plan, the values of all such installments could be aggregated for the purpose of determining whether records valued at $100 had been stolen within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 641. By its guilty verdict, the jury indicated its acceptance of the single plan theory.
The panel opinion, however, rejects the single plan finding. It rests on the premise that since the thefts occurred in installments, each installment must be treated as a separate offense, and thus “the more-than-$100 figure cannot be attained simply by aggregating the values of all the documents taken.” (at p. 980.) The general rule appears to be to the contrary. People v. Cox, 286 N.Y. 137, 36 N.E.2d 84, 86 (1941); Hurlburt v. Falvey, 298 N.E.2d 897 (Mass.App.1973); Annot., 53 A.L.R.3d 398 (1973). “As long as the larceny is held to be pursuant to a single intent, and one complete illegal scheme, it matters not the length of the period over which the takings continued.” People v. Cox, supra, 36 N.E.2d at 86. Where the Government charges and proves a series of acts under a sustained plan and intent to commit a single larceny, aggregation of values for the various takings is permissible. Hurlburt v. Falvey, supra, 298 N.E.2d at 897. This is the rule in twenty-eight of the thirty state jurisdictions surveyed in 53 A.L.R.3d 398 (1973).
The payments by DiGilio of over $1,000, regardless of whether they included services for an intermediary in arranging the theft, was evidence from which the jury could infer a value of the records to DiGilio of more than $100. This evidence afforded a concrete base for the jury’s verdict; it required no speculation by the jury as to the aggregate value.
Accordingly, I dissent from the order denying rehearing en banc. Circuit Judge WEIS joins in this dissent. Circuit Judge ADAMS has authorized me to state that he, too, believes the matter presented here is of sufficient importance to warrant consideration by the Court en banc..