Court Opinion

ID: 9447200
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:28:46.036818+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:56.488394
License: Public Domain

FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge.
Maybury was indicted in the Eastern District of New York on two counts. Both related to a United States Treasury check for ij>68 payable to Abraham Kohl. The first count charged that, for the purpose of obtaining or receiving money from the United States, Maybury forged Kohl’s name on the reverse of the check in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 495; the second charged that, in violation of the same section, Maybury uttered the check with intent to defraud the United States, knowing the endorsement to have been forged. Maybury was tried before Judge Abruzzo, jury trial having been waived.
It was stipulated that the check was a duly issued Treasury check; that it had been mailed by the government to Abraham Kohl, the payee; and that if Kohl had been called as a witness, he would have testified that he had never received, signed or endorsed it or authorized anyone else to sign or endorse it on his behalf. The check was placed in evidence. On the reverse are the names “Abraham Kohl,” “Joseph Maybury” and “William Kozin.” There is much similarity in the writing of the names of Kohl and May-bury, but there was no expert testimony whether or not the names were written by the same hand.
A secret service agent identified a statement by Maybury giving the latter’s version of what occurred. This was that the check had been in the possession of a man known to Maybury as Barney; that Maybury and Barney had been drinking in Casey’s Steak House, a restaurant and tavern in Brooklyn; that after they “had been drinking on and off for about three days, at this tavern, Barney ran short of cash and asked the bartender to cash the subject check for him”; that “in view of the fact that Barney could not write too good, he, Barney, asked me to sign his name to the check”; that Maybury signed “the check for Barney who I believed was the rightful payee”; and that Maybury thereafter signed his own name as a second endorser at the bartender’s request. In fact the check was cashed not by the bartender, but by Kozin, who was also in the tavern. Kozin testified that he had known Maybury for about a year as a fellow-patron of the tavern; that no one was with Maybury when Kozin cashed the check; and that Kozin did not know of any habitué of the tavern by the name of Barney.
Judge Abruzzo acquitted Maybury under Count I of the indictment, which charged forgery, but found Maybury guilty under Count II, which charged the uttering or publishing of a forged check with intent to defraud the United States, knowing the same to be forged. The appeal is from the judgment of conviction on this count.
Maybury contends the judgment of conviction must be set aside because the evidence was not sufficient to warrant it and because the acquittal on the charge of forgery was inconsistent with the conviction on the charge of uttering a forged check knowing the same to be forged. The government says the evidence was sufficient. Answering the claim of inconsistency in the treatment of the two counts, it says, first, that decisions of this Court and the Supreme Court deprive the alleged inconsistency of legal consequence and, second, that in fact there was none. All of us hold the evidence was sufficient. But a majority of us reject the government’s claim that the rule laid down by this Court in Steckler v. United States, 2 Cir. 1925, 7 F.2d 59, and by the Supreme Court in Dunn v. United States, 1932, 284 U.S. 390, 52 S.Ct. 189, 76 L.Ed. 356, upholding jury verdicts in criminal cases despite inconsistency as between counts, applies when a criminal case has been tried to a judge, find that, on the facts here, the acquittal on the first count was inconsistent with the conviction on the second, and therefore reverse the conviction. As to the effect of this, more hereafter.
We said in United States v. Costello, 2 Cir., 1955, 221 F.2d 668, 671, af*902firmed 350 U.S. 359, 76 S.Ct. 406, 100 L. Ed. 397, citing many cases, that on a trial for crime “the prosecution makes out a sufficient case to go to the jury, if the evidence would have been enough in a civil action; the only difference between the two is that in the end the evidence must satisfy the jury beyond any reasonable doubt.” In United States v. Dudley, 2 Cir., 1958, 260 F.2d 439, 440, we applied this same principle in a criminal case tried before a judge. Here the government’s evidence would clearly have been sufficient to go to a jury in a civil case; and we must assume the trial judge instructed himself, “respectfully and with a proper show of deference,” that he must be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt and dutifully complied with his own instruction.
The government says that, under our decision in Steckler v. United States, supra, and the Supreme Court’s approval of this in Dunn v. United States, supra, inconsistency in the disposition of counts in an indictment is without legal significance. Recognizing that these cases dealt with inconsistencies in a jury verdict, the government contends the same principle ought be applied when a criminal indictment has been tried to a judge, and cites our language in United States v. Dudley, supra, that the waiver of a jury “substitutes the judge for the jury in all respects.” The question seems to be one of first impression in this circuit and, so far as we have been able to discover, in others, except for McElheny v. United States, 1944, 146 F.2d 932, where the Ninth Circuit applied the Dunn jury verdict rule to a criminal trial before a judge without discussing whether the considerations were necessarily the same. Chief Judge LUMBARD and I believe that they are not and that the Dunn rule should not be extended to a criminal trial before a judge.
The Steckler and Dunn opinions show on their face that the decision to ignore inconsistencies in the verdict of a jury in a criminal case was based on special considerations relating to the nature and function of the jury in such cases rather than on a general principle to be applied even when these considerations were absent. This Court explained in Steckler (7 F.2d at page 60) :
“The most that can be said in such cases is that the verdict shows that either in the acquittal or the conviction the jury did not speak their real conclusions, but that does not show that they were not convinced of the defendant’s guilt. We interpret the acquittal as no more than their assumption of a power which they had no right to exercise, but to which they were disposed through lenity.”
In Dunn, Mr. Justice Holmes quoted this with approval (284 U.S. at page 393, 52 S.Ct. at page 190) and added a reference to Horning v. District of Columbia, 1920, 254 U.S. 135, 138, 41 S.Ct. 53, 54, 65 L.Ed. 185, in which he had noted that in a criminal case “the jury has the power to bring in a verdict in the teeth of both law and facts.” The vogue for repetitious multiple count indictments may well produce an increase in seemingly inconsistent jury verdicts, where in fact the jury is using its power to prevent the punishment from getting too far out of line with the crime. See United States v. Collins, 2 Cir., 272 F.2d 650.
The special considerations relating to the role of the jury go back to the very beginnings of the use of the jury as a mode of trial. Trial by jury came into being as an alternative not to trial by judge but to the ancient methods of. compurgation and ordeal. The greatest historian of our law has remarked that from the outset there was an “arbitral” element in jury trial. “Both litigants have agreed to be bound by a verdict of the country”; each “has asked for it and by it he must stand or fall.” 1 Professor Plueknett has made the same point in language especially pertinent here:
“At first, the jury was no more regarded as ‘rational’ than the ordeals *903which it replaced, and just as one did not question the judgments of God as shown by the ordeal, so the verdict of a jury was equally inscrutable. It is but slowly that the jury was rationalized and regarded as a judicial body.”2
Steckler and Dunn show it has not yet been deemed wise that this process of rationalization should be carried to the point of requiring consistency in a jury’s verdict in a criminal trial.
Another special consideration underlying the rule of Steckler and Dunn is the requirement of unanimity. This also goes back to early days. “The verdict of the jurors is not just the verdict of twelve men; it is the verdict of a pays, a ‘country,’ a neighborhood, a community.” One does not challenge “the voice of the country” for inconsistency among the jurors; “The justices seem to feel that if they analyzed the verdict they would miss the very thing for which they are looking, the opinion of the country.”3 Ignoring inconsistency in a jury’s disposition of the counts of a criminal indictment may thus be deemed a price for securing the unanimous verdict that the Sixth Amendment requires, Andres v. United States, 1948, 333 U.S. 740, 748, 68 S.Ct. 880, 92 L.Ed. 1055. Hibdon v. United States, 6 Cir., 1953, 204 F.2d 834, 37 A.L.R.2d 1130, and for interposing “the voice of the country” against the possibly excessive zeal of prosecutors. Steckler and Dunn thought it not too high a price for “the most transcendent privilege which any subject can enjoy or wish for * * * ” 3 Blackstone, Commentaries, * 379.
None of these considerations is fairly applicable to the trial of a criminal case before a judge. There is no “arbitral” element in such a trial. While the historic position of the jury affords ample ground for tolerating the jury’s assumption of the power to insure lenity, the judge is hardly the “voice of the country,” even when he sits in the jury’s place. If he deems an indictment multiplicious, he has only to say so, and the time for him to exercise any “lenity” that he deems warranted is on sentence. There is no need to permit inconsistency in the disposition of various counts so that the judge may reach unanimity with himself; on the contrary, he should be forbidden this easy method for resolving doubts. In civil cases inconsistencies in the findings of a judge are not tolerated, see White v. State, 1940, 260 App.Div. 413, 23 N.Y.S.2d 526, and inconsistencies even in jury verdicts may call for corrective action. Fed.R.Civ.Proc. 49 (b), 28 U.S.C.; Stetson v. Stindt, 3 Cir., 1922, 279 F. 209, 23 A.L.R. 302; Hartman v. White Motor Co., D.C.W.D.Mich. 1952, 12 F.R.D. 328. We do not believe we would enhance respect for law or for the courts by recognizing for a judge the same right to indulge in “vagaries” in the disposition of criminal charges that, for historic reasons, has been granted the jury. United States v. Dotterweich, 1943, 320 U.S. 277, 279, 64 S.Ct. 134, 88 L.Ed. 48. We know the role of logic in law is not unlimited; but “Holmes did not tell us that logic is to be ignored when experience is silent.”4 Since we find no experience to justify approval of an inconsistent judgment when a criminal case is tried to a judge, we think logic should prevail.
We thus reach the question whether the acquittal under the count for forging the check was inconsistent with the conviction for uttering the check knowing it to have been forged. This would not necessarily be so. An essential element of the crime of forgery is making the false writing, Fitzgibbons Boiler Co. v. Employers’ Liability Assurance Corp., 2 Cir., 1939, 105 F.2d 893, but that is not an essential element in the crime of uttering a check knowing it to be forged. On the other hand, the crime of uttering, defined in the second par*904agraph of 18 U.S.C. § 495, requires proof of putting forth the false writing, which is not an essential element of forgery. In consequence, placing Maybury in jeopardy under an indictment for forgery alone would not have barred subsequent prosecution for uttering, see State v. Blodgett, 1909, 143 Iowa 578, 121 N.W. 685; Hooper v. State, 1891, 30 Tex.App. 412, 17 S.W. 1066, and acquittal under a separate indictment for forging would have operated as res judicata on a subsequent indictment for uttering only to the extent of estopping the government from contending that Maybury himself forged the check, leaving the government free to prove by other means that he knew it to be forged.
Appellant insistg that, however all this might be in the abstract, here there was no rational basis on which the trial judge, if not convinced beyond reasonable doubt that Maybury had forged the endorsement, could be convinced beyond reasonable doubt that Maybury had uttered or published the check knowing the endorsement to be forged. Compare Sealfon v. United States, 1948, 332 U.S. 575, 68 S. Ct. 237, 92 L.Ed. 180. Both the transcript of the trial and the judgment of conviction make it plain that the trial judge rejected Maybury’s story about “Barney” as wholly unworthy of belief. Before rendering his judgment the judge stated: “I believe that the check came into his possession not rightfully, and he signed Abraham Cole’s name. That there was no Barney there. That he signed the name without any authority and then signed his own name Maybury.” But if the judge was convinced of this, how can we explain the acquittal for forgery? And if he was not so convinced, how on this record was there any basis for convicting Maybury of uttering the check knowing it to have been forged? Attempted reconciliation on the basis that the judge’s disbelief in the “Barney” story sufficed for a finding of fraudulent uttering but not of forgery, while possible in theory, does not fit the evidence or the transcript. Whatever the situation might be in other cases, Chief Judge LUMBARD and I think that in this case acquittal of forging the endorsement was inconsistent with conviction for uttering, and we can have no such confidence in the correctness of the judgment for the latter as is needed to permit it to stand.
 We are divided as to the consequences of this. Chief Judge LUM-BARD thinks that Maybury can no longer be convicted on either count and that the indictment should therefore be dismissed; Judge HAND believes that if we reverse, which he would not do, May-bury may not be retried on the forgery count but may be on the uttering count; 1 think he may be retried on both. On this issue, therefore, a majority holds that Maybury may be retried for uttering, and for that only.
Whether Maybury may be retried on the forgery count depends on the application to be given to the guarantee of the Fifth Amendment that a person shall not “be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb.” My brothers think the guarantee prevents this, and I bow to them, although if I were alone, I would take a different view. I do not question that to retry Maybury for forgery would offend the letter of the Fifth Amendment but so does the retrial of a defendant who has successfully appealed a conviction whether on one count or on many. However, at least since United States v. Ball, 1896, 163 U.S. 662, 672, 16 S.Ct. 1192, 41 L.Ed. 300, that would not be decisive. To this it is answered that Ball brought his conviction before an appellate court for review whereas Maybury did not bring his acquittal here, and Green v. United States, 1957, 355 U.S. 184, 78 S.Ct. 221, 2 L.Ed.2d 199, is cited as holding that a defendant who has successfully appealed a conviction on one count, in that case for insufficiency of the evidence, has not waived his right to freedom from renewed prosecution on another on which he was not convicted. To say that May-bury has not brought his acquittal before us seems to me right in form and wrong in substance. Of course, Maybury did not ask us to reverse the acquittal for *905forgery; but, unlike Green, he made use of it, or of the finding behind it, as the means, indeed the only successful means, of his appeal. The basis for reversing the conviction for uttering was not that the acquittal of forgery was indubitably right and the conviction of uttering therefore wrong, but that on the facts here the two could not logically stand together. Under these special and limited circumstances I would hold that, despite the formal similarity to Green, the substantial resemblance is to Ball. Whether my result be rationalized on a continued vitality of “waiver” in this narrow area or on the basic considerations of fairness as between government and defendant that underlie United States v. Ball, I think immaterial.
We are all agreed that, under United States v. Ball, double jeopardy is no bar to a retrial on the uttering count. However, my brother LUMBARD believes such a retrial is precluded because res judicata would prevent the government from proving facts essential to May-bury’s conviction and also because such a conviction would restore the very inconsistency that has led us to reverse the present conviction.
If the doctrine of res judicata were here applicable, so that the government would be prevented from asserting that Maybury forged Kohl’s name, there would still be nothing to prevent it from offering other evidence, not in the present record, that Maybury uttered the check knowing Kohl’s signature to be forged. See Murphy v. United States, 8 Cir., 1927, 18 F.2d 509, 512. In fact, however, res judicata does not seem applicable at all. Admittedly, if Maybury had been previously acquitted on a single count indictment for forgery, res judicata would prevent the government from attempting to disprove an issue necessarily determined by such an acquittal. United States v. Oppenheimer, 1916, 242 U.S. 85, 37 S.Ct. 68, 61 L.Ed. 161; Sealfon v. United States, supra. But no ease has been found where the doctrine has been applied to acquittal on one count of a multiple count indictment when the defendant has successfully appealed conviction on another count of the same indictment, and certainly not where the very ground of appeal was that the acquittal and the conviction cannot stand together. If this were the law of judgments, it would have to apply to acquittals resulting from the verdict of a jury as much as to those stemming from the judgment of a judge; in cases like Steckler and Dunn there could have been no retrial if there had been other grounds for reversing on the counts on which the defendant was convicted — a result clearly not contemplated, see 284 U.S. at page 393, 52 S.Ct. at page 190, and, indeed, it is hard to see how the result in those cases themselves could be defended. A plaintiff in a personal injury case who has caused a judgment entered on a compromise verdict to be set aside cannot claim the judgment as res judicata on the issue of liability, although the defendant had remained silent. Taylor v. Hawkinson, 47 Cal.2d 893, 306 P.2d 797 (Supreme Court of California, en banc, Traynor, J., 1957). The government’s inability to appeal an acquittal on one count in a criminal case should not render this res judicata where the defendant has successfully appealed a conviction on another count, at least when the appeal was for inconsistency. Such a result would convert the guarantee of double jeopardy from a shield into a sword.
To say that Maybury may not be retried for uttering because a conviction on that ground would maintain the very inconsistency that has led to reversal would press that doctrine beyond reasonable bounds. For, apart from the possibility that the government may adduce new evidence on a retrial, it misses the reason why we reverse for inconsistency. This is not because of any desire for elegantia juris but because we can have no confidence in a judgment convicting Maybury of one crime when the judge, by his acquittal of another, appears to have rejected the only evidence that would support the conviction here. On a new trial for uttering, the judge or the jury would be free to conclude that *906Maybury forged Kohl’s name and, on that or some other basis not here present, find Maybury guilty of uttering the check knowing the endorsement to be forged. There would be no internal inconsistency in such a judgment, and no more reason for a court to be disturbed about it than when a different jury or judge reaches a different result on the retrial of a civil case; and Maybury could hardly complain that the Fifth Amendment, as my brothers read it, has led to his conviction for only one offense .rather than two.
The appellant has been capably represented on this appeal by the Legal Aid Society, Richard E. Nolan and Agnes Folk Nolan of counsel.
Judgment reversed and new trial ordered on the count for uttering.

. 2 Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, 623.

. A Conciso History of the Common Law, 325. See also 1 Holdsworth, History of English Law, 317.

. 2 Pollock and Maitland, op. cit., 624, 626.

. Cardozo, The Nature of the Judicial Process, 33.