Court Opinion

ID: 9447040
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:23:38.470442+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:52.454272
License: Public Domain

On Petition for Rehearing
Before BARNES, HAMLIN and JERTBERG, Circuit Judges.
HAMLIN, Circuit Judge.
After the decision affirming the judgment of conviction, a petition for rehearing was filed, calling to our attention that appellant had, about a month prior to the filing of appellee’s brief, petitioned the Court to supplement his opening brief by adding as an additional ground for reversal that the District Court had erred in failing to order certain notes turned over to appellant’s counsel as required under the rule announced in Jencks v. United States, 353 U.S. 657, 77 S.Ct. 1007, 1 L.Ed.2d 1103. The trial took place prior to the Jencks decision on June 3, 1957.
Due to inadvertence this petition did not reach the panel which heard the case, thus was not acted upon. Appellant’s court-appointed counsel understandably believed it had been denied, and therefore did not cover the Jencks point either in brief or on oral argument. After oral argument, counsel for appellant learned that his petition to file a supplemental brief had not been denied, and subsequently petitioned for rehearing, calling to our attention that he had in effect been prevented from briefing and arguing his contention of error under the Jencks rule.
We granted the petition for rehearing “to be confined solely to the consideration of the effect, if any, on said action of the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Jencks v. United States.
* * * ” Both the government and appellant filed briefs on the issue and the matter was orally argued.
*66The record shows that during the trial Farrington, a government witness, testified as to his dealings with the defendant in the purchase of narcotics. He testified regarding telephone conversations with him, the place and time of meetings with him, and statements and actions of defendant at various times and places. Included in this testimony was the fact that on two occasions after he had given to the defendant government funds therefor, he had received heroin from the defendant. He described in detail the exact time, place and circumstances of his transactions with the defendant.
During the cross-examination of Far-rington by defendant’s counsel the following took place:
“Q. Now, you made notes, did you not, during the course of this investigation? A. I did not. During the course — out of the defendant’s presence, yes.
“Q. That is what I meant. A. Yes, sir, I did.
“Q. You didn’t make notes in his presence? A. No, sir.
“Q. You made notes daily or after each of these contacts with the defendant? A. Yes.
“Q. Before you took the stand yesterday you refreshed your recollection from those notes, did you not? A. I did.
“Q. Do you have a copy of those notes available? A. Yes, sir, they are available.
“Q. May I see them, please ?”
The government then objected to the production of the notes upon the ground that there was no showing that they were inconsistent with the witness’ story. It may be noted that counsel’s request was timely, and confined to notes made by the witness himself. The Court, stating that “in general, notes not used for the immediate memory refreshment at the time of giving testimony are not made available to the other side,” stated that he intended to sustain the objection.
Counsel for the defendant stressed his desire to see the notes, contending that the witness could not have an independent recollection of “a series of meetings with this defendant over a period of two months.”
After discussion, the Court announced he would inspect the notes in camera, stating “I will take a look at them now privately and see if they are such that they would be either capable of some potential worth to you or capable of some injustice being worked by their divul-genee.”
Government counsel then stated:
“May I inquire as to the procedure, your Honor? I wouldn’t want these notes, in case the Court decided they were not available to the defendant, to be a matter of public record in the exhibits.
“The Court: That is the purpose of an in camera inspection.
“Government counsel: They are not made an exhibit at that time?
“The Court: No, they are not. They are not even marked for identification. The witness hands them to the Judge and the Judge sits here on the bench and looks at them and hands them back to the witness. * * * The purpose of the in camera inspection is to let them come to the Court only for his private scrutiny.”
Thereafter, certain documents, including the witness’ notes, were handed to the Court.
During the noon recess, the Court examined the file and when court resumed the following proceedings took place in the presence but out of the hearing of the jury:
“The Court: The Court has made its in camera inspection of the agent’s file. The file consists in part of copies of the reports which were sent to the investigating agency. It consists in part of other documents which bear no relation, no apparent relation to this immediate case, but which are of the class of thing which investigative agencies have where they are suspecting many persons or *67even investigating the multifarious activities of one or more of these people.
“The file does not disclose inconsistencies with what the witness testified to here, although it does not affirmatively show all of the things in the same detail they have been brought forth here.
* * * * * *
“Insofar as it shows the identity of the informant you have already shown that you know who the informant was and have asked the witness, and the witness has verified in that regard.
“I think there is no legal reason why we should and there is every practical reason why we should not order the government to make it available for inspection by defense counsel.”
Then, in the presence and hearing of the jury, the Court said, “I will return your file to you, Mr. Farrington.”
The troublesome question as to the proper standard to be used in judging the action of a trial court where, as here, the case has been tried prior to the Jencks decision but comes before the appellate court after the Jencks decision, has arisen in several cases.
The problem was apparently first submitted to a Circuit Court in United States v. Miller, 2 Cir., 248 F.2d 163, 164, decided October 1, 1957. In a per curiam decision denying a petition for rehearing the Court of Appeals pointed out that the trial court, at defense counsel’s request, examined two statements made by the witness Mishel to determine whether counsel was entitled to use them in cross-examination. Use of one of the statements was denied because the trial court found that it contained not only matter “unrelated to this case” but nothing materially inconsistent with Mishel’s testimony. This statement was placed in a sealed envelope and filed with the Clerk of the Court, but by stipulation between appellant and appellee was excluded from the record on appeal. The Court said that it would assume that the District Court’s failure to deliver the statement to defense counsel with the extraneous matter excised was an error,
“ * * * but we cannot determine whether or not it was a prejudicial error, because the exhibit has by stipulation been excluded from the record on appeal. Since we cannot know that failure to deliver the statement, properly excised, was prejudicial to the defendant, we do not think a new trial should be ordered.”
In the present case, no such stipulation was involved; the notes in question, in the words of the trial court, were “not even marked for identification.” The effect attributed to the stipulation by the Court in Miller admits of conflicting inferences, but we regard the matter of the stipulation as an essential element to the holding in that case, and thus find it inapplicable here. For all that appears, appellant’s counsel in this case did nothing less than the trial counsel in Jencks, where the Supreme Court said [353 U.S. 657, 77 S.Ct. 1013]:
“We hold, further, that the petitioner is entitled to inspect the reports to decide whether to use them in his defense. Because only the defense is adequately equipped to determine the effective use for purpose of discrediting the Government’s witness and thereby furthering the accused’s defense, the defense must initially be entitled to see them to determine what use may be made of them. Justice requires no less.”
In both Lohman v. United States, 6 Cir., 1958, 251 F.2d 951, and Bergman v. United States, 6 Cir., 1958, 253 F.2d 933, the Sixth Circuit, in opinions by Judge, now Mr. Justice Stewart, reversed convictions on the Jencks ground. And in United States v. Prince, 3 Cir., 1959, 264 F.2d 850, where the trial occurred subsequent to both the Jencks decision and the so-called Jencks Act, 18 U.S.C.A. § 3500, the same result was reached.
*68In Lohman, where trial occurred prior to the Jencks decision, a witness testified that he had made a written report to the FBI within a day or two after a certain meeting. The trial court denied defense counsel’s motion that the report be produced. On appeal, the Court of Appeals held that under the Jencks rule refusal to grant the motion was prejudicial error. The Court stated [251 F.2d 953]:
“The district court was without the benefit of the Jencks ruling at the time of the trial. But this court must, of course, apply the law as it is when a judgment is reviewed, not the law as it was when the judgment was entered.”
In Bergman, the trial court adopted the view that a statement desired would not be made available to counsel if the witness had not used it to refresh his recollection, but would be examined by the trial court to see whether the contents were inconsistent with the witness’ testimony, and if so would -be made available to counsel, but otherwise not. It is apparent that the trial court followed the same procedure in the instant case. After pointing out that such procedure was expressly disapproved in Jencks, the Court in Bergman continued [253 F.2d 935]:
“In the light of the Jencks decision, the failure of the district court to make [the] prior statement available to the defense requires that the judgments be set aside. We reach this conclusion with reluctance in view of the likelihood that the failure to make [the] statement available actually worked no prejudice to the defendants, and in view of the generally conscientious and fair conduct of the long and complicated trial by the district judge.”
Rosenberg v. United States, 1959, 360 U.S. 367, 79 S.Ct. 1231, 3 L.Ed.2d 1304 is one of the first cases in which the Supreme Court has been called upon to interpret the statute, 18 U.S.C.A. § 3500; see Palermo v. United States, 1959, 360 U.S. 343, 79 S.Ct. 1217, 3 L.Ed.2d 1287.
In Rosenberg, the trial court refused to allow the defendant to examine a letter written by a witness to the United States Attorney before the trial. The case was tried in the District Court, 157 F.Supp. 654, after the passage of § 3500 and the letter in question, in accordance with the provisions of that section, was preserved in the record on appeal. The Court of Appeals, 3 Cir., 257 F.2d 760, held it was error not to have given the letter in question to counsel for examination, but after examining the letter, the Court held that counsel had at the time of the trial the same information contained in the letter and therefore the failure to allow defendant’s counsel to examine it at the time of trial was of no consequence.
The Supreme Court affirmed by a 5 to 4 majority, saying [360 U.S. 367, 79 S.Ct. 1234]:
“An appellate court should not confidently guess what defendant’s attorney might have found useful for impeachment purposes in withheld documents to which the defense is entitled. However, when the very same information was possessed by defendant’s counsel as would have been available were error not committed, it would offend common sense and the fair administration of justice to order a new trial. There is such a thing as harmless error and this clearly was such.”
Although disagreeing with respect to the specific application of the harmless error doctrine under the facts of the case, the four dissenting Justices indicated that in a proper case such a standard may be applied:
“Although we need not go so far as those courts which have suggested that the harmless error doctrine can never apply as to statements producible under the statute, see Bergman v. United States, 6 Cir., 253 F.2d 933; United States v. Prince, 3 Cir., 264 F.2d 850, fidelity to the principle underlying Jencks and the Jencks statute requires, I think, that when the defense has *69been denied a statement producible under the statute, an appellate court should order a new trial unless the circumstances justify the conclusion that a finding that such a denial was harmful error would be clearly erroneous.”
We, unlike the Supreme Court in Rosenberg, do not have the notes before us, and are unable to characterize the error as harmless.
The trial in the instant case having occurred before the Jencks statute, there were no procedures set up for counsel to preserve the notes in question for examination by a reviewing court. As shown above, the District Court in outlining the procedure to be followed concerning the notes, stated they were not to be made an exhibit. He said further, “They are not even marked for identification.”
We apply the Jencks case, not the statute. Lohman v. United States, supra. In Rosenberg, the Supreme Court was considering application of the statute. Even assuming, so far as the case here is concerned, that the same standards are applicable in either case and that it would be permissible to apply the harmless error doctrine, we cannot say that failure to turn the notes over to appellant’s counsel was not prejudicial or that it constituted harmless error.1
The testimony of the witness Farring-ton was not merely incidental to the governments case or collateral to the principal question. He was intimately concerned with the events constituting the offenses charged, and was the one who made the purchases of the narcotics appellant was convicted of selling. It is as true here as it was in Jencks that — •
“The crucial nature of the testimony * * * to the Government’s case is conspicuously apparent. The impeachment of that testimony was singularly important to the petitioner.” Jencks v. United States, supra, 353 U.S. at page 667, 77 S.Ct. at page 1012.
We are reluctant to reverse a case where the District Court followed a procedure which was then widely followed and where, as the Government in its brief points out, the evidence of guilt was substantial, but we are satisfied, after careful consideration, that under the rule of Jencks the refusal to permit the inspection of the notes under the circumstances of this case was error calling for reversal, and we must act accordingly. Upon a retrial the procedures set out in Title 18 Section 3500 will be followed.
The judgment is reversed.

. The parties discuss three other cases from this circuit on the Jencks question. Rodgers v. United States, 9 Cir., 1959, 267 F.2d 79; Wagner v. United Statos, 9 Cir., 1959, 264 F.2d 524; Rios v. United States, 9 Cir., 1958, 256 F.2d 173.