Court Opinion

ID: 9455057
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:09:32.676312+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:25.972532
License: Public Domain

BARNES, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I dissent. This petitioner has been before this court twice before. Wagner v. United States, 264 F.2d 524 (1959). The denial of his earlier § 2255 petition was affirmed. Wagner v. United States, 374 F.2d 86 (9th Cir. 1967).
In Wagner’s appeal from his conviction, one of the grounds claimed for reversal was that the trial court erred in not directing the Government to give Wagner the name and address of a Seven-up truck driver. Cf. Wagner, supra, 264 F.2d 524 at 537. With the long transcript of the trial available to our reviewing panel, this issue was considered and determined adversely to appellant.
*622On February 6, 1967, a panel of this court (Judges Barnes, Ely and Peckham, the latter sitting by assignment, with Judge Ely writing the per curiam opinion) affirmed a denial of relief under § 2255, saying the same three errors urged in the petition “had been rejected by our court on the direct appeal from the judgment of conviction.”
Appellant then filed a second § 2255 petition which did not raise the same three questions by use of the same language utilized on his first motion, but which did, in my opinion, raise a precisely similar issue to that raised on the direct appeal, i. e., the testimony of the Seven-up driver.
In disposing of that same issue, the panel on the original appeal (Judges Chambers, Barnes and Hamley, with Judge Hamley the author) stated as follows:
“Prior to the first trial appellant Wagner moved for a bill of particulars which would have supplied the names and addresses of persons present at the alleged robbery. It was later stipulated that this motion would also be deemed to be made in connection with the second trial. The motion was denied. During the course of the second trial there was testimony to the effect that at the time of the robbery a man was in a Seven-up truck nearby. The government did not give appellants the name and address of this truck driver. In view of these circumstances appellants argue under their sixth specification of error that the trial court erred in denying the motion for a bill of particulars.
“Bonner, one of the victims of the robbery, testified that a Seven-up truck was standing directly behind the robbers’ Oldsmobile. After the robbery the driver of this truck gave Bonner the license number of the ‘get-away’ car written on an envelope or a piece of paper. Robert Hunt, another witness called by the government, saw the driver of the Seven-up truck take down the license number of the Oldsmobile. No other record references to the truck driver have been called to our attention.
“The record of this trial therefore hardly supports appellants’ assertion that ‘it is clear’ that the name of the driver of the Seven-up truck was given to one of the government witnesses and that his name and address were within the knowledge of the government. It is true that the government brief makes reference to this driver as a ‘Mr. Hall.’ This reference, however, is based on testimony taken at the first trial which is not in the record before us.
“If we do consider that testimony, however, it establishes that appellants could have obtained the information in question prior to the second trial [footnote omitted]. There is no contention that appellants made such an effort, or that if they did so without success the court was advised of that fact. Nor, even with the disclosure concerning the testimony at the first trial regarding a ‘Mr. Hall,’ is it established that the government had the address of the driver of the Seven-up truck.
“Where a witness is equally available to both parties no inference should be drawn from the failure to produce such a witness. Shurman v. United States, 5 Cir., 233 F.2d 272, 275. On like reasoning, where the name and address of a witness is equally available to both parties, no prejudice results from the denial of a motion requiring one party to supply that information to the other [footnote omitted].” 264 F.2d at 531.
The majority of this panel now reverse the trial judge on the claim the Seven-up driver’s testimony was suppressed; despite the vague, uncertain and conclusionary nature of a petition that does not relate a single circumstance that establishes any suppression; is not supported by any affidavits made by any witness as to what they could or would testify to; and merely alleges, in purely conclusionary language of the pe*623titioner himself, without detailed description as to what, how, when or where:
(1) that he saw “documentary proof” in February 1961 (two years after his conviction was affirmed and five years before he filed his first § 2255 petition) that the Government had suppressed evidence favorable to him; and
(2) that in 1965 (while imprisoned) he spoke with “a person” who had full knowledge of the suppression.
Nowhere in the showing before the district judge was there any mention of any witness’ name. Only in Appellant’s Reply Brief before us (p. 3) does he actually state he refers to “the Seven-up truck driver” already mentioned in this court’s opinion affirming conviction, and whom he could have subpoenaed at his trial had he desired.
The experienced district judge sitting on this second § 2255 petition stated in his order, among other things:
“(3) petitioner states the bald conclusion that the Government suppressed evidence favorable to his defense at the time of trial, but he does not say what the evidence was, nor how it could have altered the result of the trial; * * (R.T. pp. 26-27.)
However, the trial judge than “invited” the petitioner to file an amended petition, and then ruled:
“(2) on March 29, 1967, following the decision of the Circuit Court, petitioner filed another Section 2255 motion in which he stated the bald conclusion that the Government suppressed evidence favorable to his defense at the time of trial, and that he ‘spoke with a person who had full knowledge of the suppression on the part of the Government relating to an eye-witness to the alleged offense’;
“(3) the court dismissed the petition filed on March 29, 1967, but granted leave to the petitioner to file an amended petition and allege facts, if he wished to do so;
“(4) the petitioner has now filed an amended petition but he still does not allege any facts, and states as his reason that he does not wish to disclose the name of the eye-witness because the Government would ‘exercise the same kind of suppression’;
“(5) it is quite obvious that the . matter alluded to in the plaintiff’s petition does not refer to a contention not previously advanced, but relates to the driver of a Seven-up truck referred to in the original trial and on appeal where the Court of Appeals held that the Government did not suppress the name and address of the Seven-up truck driver and states, ‘Where a witness is equally available to both parties no inference should be drawn from the failure to produce such a witness’. Wagner v. United States, 264 F.2d 524, 531.
“(6) the petitioner states that he spoke to one of his fellow inmates relative to the suppression of the testimony of the eye-witness, and wishes to bring his fellow inmate to Southern California with him for a hearing before this court;
“(7) such vague and conclusory allegations do not require the court to bring the petitioner and his fellow prisoner 1500 miles for an evidentiary hearing (Sanders v. United States, 373 U.S. 1,19 [83 S.Ct. 1068]; Wilkins v. United States [103 U.S.App.D.C. 322] 258 F.2d 416), and the files and records of the case conclusively show that the petitioner is entitled to no relief.” (R.T. pp. 28-29.)
I think the district court judge was correct, and I would affirm. The purported “evidence” that petitioner relies upon is his conclusion “that no person or persons could have identified the robbers, as they were masked and wore hats during the entire course of the robbery.” That was not the testimony at the trial. As the majority opinion points out, one witness testified Wagner’s mask had slipped down.
*624How would the majority suggest what evidence could be offered and introduced to prove that “no person or persons could have identified the robbers” ? Could any witness express such an opinion?
It is my belief that the majority holding is an example of how appellate judges tend to substitute their judgment on evanescent possibilities for the considered judgment of other judges, both trial and appellate.
If the district court’s fact finding process is to retain any integrity or uniformity, it must be respected by appellate courts. Its conclusions should not, in my opinion, be overturned on a showing such as has here been made.