Court Opinion

ID: 9454280
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:41:58.094212+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:03.242316
License: Public Domain

GODBOLD, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
During the investigative stages of this case, appellant “failed to explain” to the satisfaction of the government agents his substantial increase in net worth, and at times he specifically invoked his constitutional privilege to remain silent. In his closing arguments to the jury the government counsel commented on this failure to explain and on the invocation of the privilege. The majority concedes that these remarks normally would re*196quire a reversal of the case under the rationale of Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965). But my brothers find that “peculiar circumstances” require a different result in this case.1
The comments of the government counsel could hardly have been more prejudicial.2 Repeated reference was made to the failure to explain an increase in net worth as shown by the government’s calculations. Comment was made on the fact that Hayes “stood on his constitutional rights.” The members of the jury were asked whether they would have done the same. In the first volley of the prosecution barrage, during the initial closing argument by the prosecutor, the jury was told:
This would have been a way if they had disclosed that vast amount of money they had hoarded, this would have been a way that you gentlemen would not have been sitting here four and a half days.3 This trial would never have come up; these people would never have been indicted; nothing would have happened. All they had to do was make a truthful explanation of this increase and that would have ended the matter. That would have ended the matter.
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If Mr. Hayes had that money prior to 1950, he could not have been in-dieted. All he had to do was to come forward and tell Mr. Snyder that he had these funds.
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[T]hese were conferences set up with appointments, to find out where the difference was between the government’s figures and their figures, give á reasonable explanation of it — make an explanation of it, [the government agents] said, give us a reasonable explanation and we will cease this investigation and that will be the end of it, Mr. and Mrs. Hayes will not have to go through this endurance of being indicted and coming to trial and taking a chance of whether or not they will have to go to jail or not, this eliminates every bit of it. Why didn’t they tell it? Why didn’t they disclose it? They disclosed it the first time on this witness stand here the other day. You heard it the same time I did.4
To the above line of argument by the prosecution the first defense counsel to argue responded:
The evidence shows that I told him and her that they would make no statements, at first, and Members of the Jury, that is their right under our Constitution and government. And if they choose not to explain to an enforcement officer of any government, then they have that right and can reserve the right to explain to the Mem*197bers of the Jury and the Court under the rules of evidence as to what their explanation might be.
Then in the middle of his argument the second defense counsel said:
First of all, I remind you again, that the defendants, and his Honor will instruct you, that the defendants have no duty to prove themselves innocent. Furthermore, they have no duty to make any disclosures to the government and, furthermore, both Mr. Varn and I follow the practice when a lawyer is employed he tries to take care of his client and his business.
In his final closing argument the prosecutor delivered the coup de grace:
[Defense counsel Varn] also knows that if he and Mr. Ervin [also defense counsel] had come forth with any explanation as to the increase in his income he is charged with in 1958, 1959 and 1960, and come up here and said, “we have $64,000 in 1950” and been able to substantiate that, there would never have been a case. And yet they have a right to stand on their Constitutional Rights and not to say anything. But would you do it? Would you do it, and wait and be indicted and come up here and go through this trial, and wonder if you were going to prison, and say nothing.
It is to these last remarks that the defense made the objection quoted by the majority. The court’s response to the objection was, “The jury will be appropriately instructed as to the matter in the full Charges of the Court. Let’s move on.” Government counsel resumed, saying:
Mr. Varn is the one that brought that up and I think I have a right to reply to it.5 I don’t think that any of you would sit back and wait and be indicted before coming forth and giving a reasonable explanation. You will have to decide that. That is one of the things for you to decide. * *
No “peculiar circumstances,” no curative instructions,6 no theories of waiver, invitation, or failure to object with precision (or to object at all), can make a silk purse of this sow’s ear.
It is essential to distinguish between a defendant’s Fifth Amendment privilege and the elements of the government’s prima facie case set out in Holland v. United States, 348 U.S. 121, 75 S.Ct. 127, 99 L.Ed. 150 (1954). In Holland the Supreme Court said that “once the government has established its case the defendant [in a net worth prosecution] remains quiet at his peril.” Id. at 138-139, 75 S.Ct. at 137, 99 L.Ed. at 166. This “failure to explain” relates to the proof the defendant may — or may not — adduce at the trial. It does not shrink the scope of the Fifth Amendment as it applies to pretrial investigation.
My reading of the record impels me to conclude that throughout the trial government counsel misconceived the interplay of the Holland principle and the Fifth Amendment. The government’s position was not that Hayes, either personally or through his accountants or attorneys, waived his privilege against self-incrimination during the investiga*198tion. Nor was it that Hayes’ testimony from the stand was so inconsistent with his prior exercise of the privilege as to permit the admission of evidence concerning that prior exercise for impeachment purposes. Compare Grunewald v. United States, 353 U.S. 391, 77 S.Ct. 963, 1 L.Ed.2d 931, 62 A.L.R.2d 1344 (1957); United States v. Marcus, 401 F.2d 563 (2d Cir. 1968); petition for cert. den., 393 U.S. 1023, 89 S.Ct. 633, 21 L.Ed.2d 567 (Jan. 13, 1969).7 Rather, the government’s position was that the taxpayer had a right during the investigation to stand on his privilege and not produce evidence or otherwise explain his increase in net worth, but that his exercise of the privilege coupled with his offering of an explanation for the first time at the trial was a substantive indication of guilt.8 In short, the government used appellant’s exercise of his Fifth Amendment privilege as an affirmative weapon to convict.
An accused cannot be penalized for exercising his constitutional privilege against self-incrimination either through comment on his failure to take the stand, Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 85 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965); Anderson v. Nelson, 390 U.S. 523, 88 S.Ct. 1133, 20 L.Ed.2d 81 (1968), or by testimony at trial of a pretrial exercise of the privilege, Grunewald v. United States, 353 U.S. 391, 77 S.Ct. 963, 1 L.Ed.2d 931, 62 A.L.R.2d 1344 (1957); Walker v. United States, 5 Cir. 1968, 404 F.2d 900 [Dec. 11, 1968] ; Helton v. United States, 221 F.2d 338 (5th Cir. 1955). In like manner he is protected from prosecutorial comment at trial on his pretrial exercise of the privilege.
Only a few weeks ago in Walker v. United States, supra, 404 F.2d at 903 this court said:
We would be naive if we failed to recognize that most laymen view an assertion of the Fifth Amendment privilege as a badge of guilt. As said by Mr. Justice Frankfurter, speaking for the Court:
“This constitutional protection must not be interpreted in a hostile or niggardly spirit. Too many, even those who should be better advised, view this privilege as a shelter for wrongdoers. They too readily assume that those who invoke it are either guilty of crime or commit perjury in claiming the privilege. Such a view does scant honor to the patriots who sponsored the Bill of Rights as a condition to acceptance of the Constitution by the ratifying States.”
Ullmann v. United States, 1956, 350 U.S. 422, 426, 427, 76 S.Ct. 497, 500, 100 L.Ed. 511.
In Walker the government was allowed to elicit from one of its witnesses, the owner of credit cards used by the accused in a Dyer Act case, that in a pretrial conversation he asked the accused, “Just how did you get my credit cards ?” *199and the defendant responded, “I refuse to answer on the ground it might incriminate me.” This was held error. Prosecutorial comment on this matter in argument to the jury, though without objection, was held so improper and prejudicial as to constitute plain error.
Nearly 15 years ago this court said in Helton v. United States, supra:
The constitutional protection against self-incrimination does not begin with a trial of a defendant on the charges against him. History tells us that it was the preliminary inquisition, prior to trial on the merits, which gave rise to the abuses, which resulted in the recognition of the privilege against self-incrimination. Under our law it is not the function of police officers to determine for the benefit of the jury whether or not a person under arrest on suspicion of crime has given a sufficient explanation, or any explanation at all, and the fact that the accused here remained silent rather than risk unwitting distortion of his statement by a police officer at a later date does not give in law, and should not give in fact, rise to an inference of guilt. 221 F.2d at 341-342.
The language of Mr. Justice Black in his concurring opinion in Grünewald also is pertinent:
I can think of no special circumstances that would justify use of a constitutional privilege to discredit or convict a person who asserts it. The value of constitutional privileges is largely destroyed if persons can be penalized for relying on them. It seems peculiarly incongruous and indefensible for courts which exist and act only under the Constitution to draw inferences of lack of honesty from invocation of a privilege deemed worthy of enshrinement in the Constitution. 353 U.S. at 425-426, 77 S.Ct. at 984-985, 1 L.Ed.2d at 955.
For these egregious errors of constitutional dimensions, this case should be reversed and appellant granted a new trial.

. Implied in the majority discussion is the view that the Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination extended to the •Internal Revenue investigation of the income tax affairs of the appellant and his wife. I am in accord with that view; therefore, I do not discuss the availability of the privilege. See generally, McKay, Self-Incrimination and the New Privacy, 1967 Supreme Court Review 193.

. As to whether a prosecutor’s comment on a defendant’s pretrial assertion of the Fifth Amendment is, in the words of the majority, “prejudicial error,” cf. Anderson v. Nelson, 390 U.S. 523, 524, 88 S.Ct. 1133, 1134, 20 L.Ed.2d 81, 83 (1968) : “[C]omment on a defendant’s failure to testify cannot be labeled harmless error in a case where such comment is extensive, where an inference of guilt from silence is stressed to the jury as a basis of conviction, and where there is evidence that would have supported acquittal.” In Chapman v. California, 386 U.S. 18, 87 S.Ct. 824, 17 L.Ed.2d 705 (1967), the Supreme Court held that before a comment on an assertion of the Fifth Amendment can be found harmless the court must be able to declare its belief that it is harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

. This remark, standing alone and not objected to, is so fraught with prejudice and appeal to improper motives that it should reverse this case.

. These comments establish that, contrary to the majority’s contention, the futher prejudicial remarks made by the government counsel in his final argument were not “invited” by defense counsel.

. This not only added to the prejudice but was factually incorrect as well. The initial comment on the pretrial failure to explain was made by the prosecutor. See text at note 4, supra.

. The court’s charge was not as all-curative as the majority say. The judge charged that under the Fifth Amendment one is not required to speak against himself or give a statement and that no inference was to be drawn from the fact that during the investigation the accused refused to make any statement. However, immediately prior to that the trial judge had instructed that if the defendant offered an explanation as to the source of funds the government could not disregard it and the jury could consider failure of the government to check out an explanation if made, and then the judge said: “And if the defendants failed to supply information in that regard you may consider such failure, * * *»

. Marcus presented a different question than is before us. The agent there testified to admissions made to him by the defendant during the investigation. Defense counsel argued to the jury that on other and later occasions the defendant had refused to answer the agent’s questions, and that from this fact the jury should conclude that the agent’s testimony of earlier admissions actually made was not to be believed. The court held it was not ground for mistrial that in response to this defense attack on the credibility of a key government witness the prosecutor argued that the accused, once it became clear to him he was under investigation, was unwilling to submit to question and answer under oath.

. Professor Steven Duke points out the practical effects of the taxpayer’s pretrial claim of privilege, one of which is the consequence here occurring of the exercise being treated as evidence of guilt, gee Duhe, Prosecutions for Attempts to Evade Income Tam: A Discordant View of a Procedural Hybrid, 76 Yale L.J. 1 (1966). In the instant case the prosecution’s approach is exemplified by the fact that in response to appellant’s motion for a bill of particulars seeking details of the government’s calculations, the government stated, and reiterated, that the defendants had been afforded opportunities to explain their tax deficiencies but “no explanation has been forthcoming.”