Court Opinion

ID: 9453257
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:08:21.66308+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:35.326783
License: Public Domain

WATERMAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent from the judgment my brothers would enter, a judgment which affirms the conviction below without ever reaching or discussing the question of whether defendant-appellant was proved guilty of having violated the especially-designed criminal statute upon which he was indicted. That statute is set forth in footnote 1 of the majority opinion.
I respectfully dissent from the opinion my brothers have written, which, to my mind, incorrectly interprets the trial record. They hold that, though appellant’s counsel at the close of the government case made a proper motion for an acquittal, he somehow then waived that motion by not orally discussing the most significant part of it. I believe appellant should have been acquitted on the merits for failure of the Government’s proof. I cannot go along with so broad an extension of the concept of waiver, an extension which in this case is so prejudicial to appellant as to be the sole method by which his conviction below is affirmed.
The majority here recognizes that “venue requirements are an essential *549part of a case,” and that an objection to venue is preserved by a general motion for acquittal after all the evidence has been received. United States v. Jones, 174 F.2d 746, 748 (7 Cir. 1949). And see United States v. Browne, 225 F.2d 751, 755 (7 Cir. 1955); United States v. Gross, 276 F.2d 816, 818-819 (2 Cir.), cert, denied, 363 U.S. 831, 80 S.Ct. 1602, 4 L.Ed.2d 1525 (1960). Thus if defense counsel had said no more than “I move to acquit” the issue of whether venue was proved in this case would be before this court. However, they would hold that, because defense counsel in arguing his motion set forth his grounds for it without mentioning the word “venue” in his argument, he waived any claim he might have had that the Government had not proved the commission in the Eastern District of New York of the crime charged to have been committed in that District. I cannot agree that defense counsel so unprofessionally prejudiced his client’s case by any such waiver.
Defense counsel orally argued as the third ground for his motion to acquit that the Government had “failed to prove the charge set forth in the indictment” and read verbatim the charging portion thereof. My brothers have quoted his language in their opinion. Obviously one of the grounds for the motion was the insufficiency of the evidence to prove the crime alleged. Counsel then pointed out that the Government had failed to prove that defendant had possessed the contraband narcotics, ending his remarks with:
“There is no proof established by the Government that this defendant at any time, at any place, in any manner whatsoever, purchased Government’s Exhibit 2, which the Government offered in evidence. I therefore move to acquit.” (emphasis supplied).
Thus he clearly set forth that his motion was based upon the ground that there had been a failure, not only of the Government’s proof of possession (and hence, as possession was necessary under the presumption to substantiate a prima facie case, proof of purchase) but also that there had been a failure of proof of the time or place or manner of any purchase. Counsel’s entire argument consumed but five paragraphs of the record, the final three being quoted in the majority opinion. He began by saying: “Now, Your Honor, on the whole case the defendant moves to acquit * * (emphasis supplied), and in the fifth and closing paragraph, which we have both quoted, he directed his remarks to failure of the Government’s proof on each and every allegation in the indictment.
A vital allegation, of course, is the one alleging that the crime charged took place within the judicial district wherein the indictment says it took place. I do not understand how my brothers can hold that counsel threw away his case at this point.
My brothers also quote defense counsel’s three-paragraph reply to the Assistant United States Attorney’s response to defense counsel’s initial argument. The prosecutor had argued that the Government testimony had proved that defendant at Kennedy Airport had a clear-cut possession of the drugs and proof of that possession when considered with the statutory presumption that possession proves purchase satisfied the government burden.
Defense counsel of course limited his rebuttal remarks to the issue the prosecutor argued; it would be a strange requirement indeed that in a rebuttal presentation a counsel to avoid a waiver of a position taken by him in his opening argument has to repeat that argument. Apparently my brothers would hold that there was such a waiver here.
The prosecutor argued that the packages found on the seat of defendant’s automobile were certainly possessed by him. The government testimony was that an informer had arranged with the defendant to have the defendant deliver cocaine to him at the Kennedy Airport. This arrangement had been made by monitored telephone calls made by the informer to the defendant at the defendant’s home in the Bronx. The content of these calls was testified to by two gov-*550eminent agents, the agents who had monitored them. The defendant said he had the narcotics and would deliver them. Defendant’s home was in the Southern District of New York, and it is uncon-tradicted that defendant had the cocaine in the Bronx and drove from the Southern District with it to the Kennedy Airport in the Eastern District in order to deliver it according to the arrangement. As I have stated earlier, if the guilt of this defendant were to be adjudicated on its merits, I (and I apprehend my brothers also) would be required to hold that the Government had not proved its case because the Government’s two witnesses, the only two witnesses in the ease, by their own testimony had rebutted any presumption that this defendant had purchased these narcotics in the Eastern District of New York, and therefore the Government had failed to prove all of the elements of the offense alleged in the indictment.
Our court has always followed and adopted with approval the language of Justice Minton in United States v. Jones, supra, 174 F.2d at 748, stated by him during his service on the Seventh Circuit:
The Government has a duty to perform. First, it must prove its case on the record and that includes the proof of venue. Second, if that proof is challenged as to sufficiency by a general motion for acquittal, it is the Government’s duty to require the defendant to be specific in his objection, and a failure to do so will not enable the Government on appeal to say that the question was not specifically raised below. If it was not, that was the Government’s fault. Surely, the defendant does not have to lead the Government through the various steps of the trial to insure a proper record for the Government to stand upon. The Government cannot be heard to say it does not know the significance of a motion for acquittal.
My brothers cite two Second Circuit cases in support of their proposition that a defense counsel may, by a waiver, relieve the Government of proof of venue. In each of these cases the language of Judge Minton is specifically approved. In the elder, United States v. Brothman, 191 F.2d 70, 73 (2 Cir. 1951), our court said flatly “ * * * that a motion for acquittal made at the conclusion of all the evidence properly raised the question of venue in the court below. Such a motion need not specify the grounds therefor.” In the later, United States v. Gross, 2 Cir., 276 F.2d 816, 818, the language is quoted with approval, and in Gross our court held that the government claim there that Gross had waived any objection to venue was ill-founded, for venue was properly laid in the district where the indictment was filed.
I would not hold that counsel here so prejudicially waived his client’s right to be acquitted, and would reach the merits.