Court Opinion

ID: 9470359
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:03:31.266957+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:51.233613
License: Public Domain

POSNER, Circuit Judge,
dissenting.
The statute under which the defendant was charged, 18 U.S.C. § 1014, might have been so worded as to punish the making of false statements to a national bank whether or not insured, cf. 18 U.S.C. § 2113(f), but was not. It requires that the bank be federally insured at the time the. statements are made to it. This is an element of the offense and must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt.
The record contains no direct evidence that either of the two banks to which the appellant is alleged to have made false statements was federally insured in May 1979 when the statements were made. On November 23, 1981, the first day of the trial, the prosecutor asked an officer of each bank, in passing, “is your bank insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation?” One answered “yes it is,” the other “yes, sir.” Neither was asked whether his bank had been insured back in May 1979, and no certificate of insurance was put into evidence.
Although it is likely that the banks were federally insured in May 1979, this was not proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The government in its brief asked us to take judicial notice that the banks were insured but did not tell us what facts establishing insured status we should take judicial notice of. It is true that the banks are, and on the date of the alleged false statements were, national banks, and as such required to be federally insured, see 12 U.S.C. §§ 1814(b), 1818, and I am willing to assume that national banks are generally law abiding. But one cannot infer — at least with the confidence required in a criminal case— from the fact that someone is required by law to do something that he has done it; 12 C.F.R. § 303.7, which specifies procedures by which a bank that has lost insured status can regain it, implies — what is anyway obvious — that deposit insurance can lapse.
In United States v. Platenburg, 657 F.2d 797, 799 (5th Cir.1981), the only evidence of insured status was a certificate of insurance dated seven years before the events in question, and the court held this was not enough. Although Platenburg is distinguishable on its facts because the bank involved there was not a national bank, the evidence of insured status is no stronger in this case, limited as it is to testimony that the bank was insured at the time of trial-two and a half years after the alleged offense.
No case has upheld conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 1014 on evidence of insured status as weak as in this case, unless it is United States v. Thompson, 421 F.2d 373, 379 (5th Cir.1970), which, even if one ignores the fact that it was vacated by the Supreme Court for reasons that are unclear, see 400 U.S. 17, 91 S.Ct. 122, 27 L.Ed.2d 117 (1970) (per curiam), is of doubtful authority after Platenburg. In Gorman v. United States, 380 F.2d 158, 165 (1st Cir.1967), there was testimony of insured status both before and after the alleged criminal act. In United States v. Jackson, 430 F.2d 1113, 1115-16 (9th Cir.1970), the certificate, bearing a date before the robbery, was put in evidence, accompanied by testimony that the certificate is good “until the insurance is cancelled,” implying that the insurance had not been cancelled at the time of the robbery. Finally, in United States v. Safley, 408 F.2d 603, 605 (4th Cir.1969), the case factually most like this one, the court held that the context permitted the jury to infer that the bank officers who testified that “the deposits are” insured were referring to the time of the offense rather than the time of trial, despite the tense; there is no basis for such an inference here. And it adds nothing to the government’s case that defense counsel could have helped the government by objecting to the relevance of asking the bank officers whether their banks were insured at the time of trial; counsel was not obliged to help the government convict his client.
My brethren must share some of my misgivings about the sufficiency of the evi*677dence that the banks were insured at the time of the alleged offense, because they say that unless the government shapes up, they may direct acquittal in a future case. But either the government proved every element of the offense beyond a reasonable doubt or it did not. If it did not, we must reverse; if it did, it is no business of ours that it could have put on an even stronger case.
If the government needed a warning, it got it three years ago in United States v. Maner, 611 F.2d 107, 112 (5th Cir.1980) (“the Government treads perilously close to reversal in this case, and may soon find itself crossing the line from sufficiency to insufficiency .... [T]his is a nationwide plague infecting United States Attorneys throughout the land”). The warning was not heeded, and acquittal was directed in Platenburg — two years ago. I would have thought the Justice Department would keep its attorneys in Illinois abreast of rulings in other circuits. That is not our function. I would reverse.
I join in Parts II and III of the court’s opinion.