Court Opinion

ID: 9467730
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:55:01.033081+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:40:29.548765
License: Public Domain

GARTH, Circuit Judge,
concurring and dissenting.
I concur with the majority’s decision to vacate McElroy’s conviction and to enter a judgment of acquittal on Count II. I dis*282sent from the majority’s affirmance of McElroy’s convictions on Counts I and III.
I.
The clarification of the requirements necessary to support a conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 2314 (1976) is of overriding concern in this case. In relevant part, § 2314 reads:
Whoever, with unlawful or fraudulent intent, transports in interstate or foreign commerce any falsely made, forged, altered, or counterfeited securities or tax stamp, knowing the same to have been falsely made, forged, altered, or counterfeited ... shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
The majority opinion in analyzing the statute, focuses only on the issue of whether the checks involved had to be forged before they crossed from one state (here Ohio) to another state (here Pennsylvania). The majority of this court disagrees with the recent Tenth Circuit en banc decision, United States v. Sparrow, 635 F.2d 794 (10th Cir. 1980) (en banc) reversing United States v. Sparrow, 614 F.2d 229 (10th Cir. 1980), which held that the statute required proof that the checks were already forged at the time they crossed the state line. The majority here holds that “[i]f at any point in the interstate movement the check was in a forged condition, the statute was satisfied.” Maj. op. at 279.
To this point I am in full agreement with my colleagues who form the majority, for I too agree that the checks do not have to be in a forged condition when they cross from one state to another. In my view it is immaterial in which state the checks were forged, providing they ultimately are found to be forged instruments in a state different from the state where they originated.
• Thus, to this extent I too adhere to the “anti-Sparrow ” construction announced today by the majority. However, adherence to this interpretation cannot end our inquiry in this case. By limiting its analysis to the forgery element of the statute, i. e., the state in which the checks were forged, the majority has failed to address the element of § 2314 which requires proof that it was the defendant who transported the checks or who caused the checks to be transported in interstate commerce — in this case from Ohio to Pennsylvania.
Assuming1 that I have read the majority’s opinion correctly in this respect, I am *283obliged to dissent from its analysis and the result which it has reached.
II.
As I understand the current jurisprudence of § 2314, the cases interpreting the interstate requirement of that statute fall into two discrete groups.
The first of these are cases in which the interstate component is satisfied by the negotiation of a check drawn in one state and presented in another. In those cases, of which United States v. Newson, 531 F.2d 979 (10th Cir. 1976), is representative, the mere negotiation of a check is deemed to provide proof of interstate commerce because by the defendant’s act of negotiation, a check clearance procedure which is interstate in scope, has been triggered. Thus the defendant in such cases has caused the check to be transported in interstate commerce, even though he himself has not physically transported the check from one state to another.
The second group of cases are those where the defendant has actually transported the cheek, whether in a forged or un-forged condition, from one state to another, thus satisfying the interstate requirement. That situation is reflected in cases such as United States v. Lewis, 560 F.2d 901 (8th Cir. 1971); United States v. Sparrow, supra. Thus, even adopting the “anti-Sparrow ” interpretation which the majority adopts, I find no authority in the cases for dispensing with a need to prove in a case such as this one, that: (1) either the checks were caused to be transported by McElroy between Ohio and Pennsylvania, or (2) that McElroy with the checks travelled from Ohio to Pennsylvania.
In our present case, neither proof of negotiation nor proof of transportation in interstate commerce is present. Here no check has been negotiated through check clearance procedures. To the contrary, the proofs in Counts I and III reveal that upon receiving the checks, the boat and car dealers did not deposit them. In that sense the cheeks were never negotiated and thus never satisfied the interstate requirement because they never became involved in check clearance procedures.2
Nor does the record disclose that McElroy actually carried or transported the checks from Ohio to Pennsylvania.3 It is undisputed that the checks were drawn on an Ohio bank, and it is undisputed that McElroy possessed them in Pennsylvania, but the record is devoid of proof as to who brought the checks from Ohio to Pennsylvania, or indeed how they came into McElroy’s possession in Pennsylvania.
As I read the record, there is not enough evidence for a jury to have found beyond a reasonable doubt, resolving all inferences in favor of the government, see Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 *284L.Ed.2d 560 (1979), that McElroy transported the checks from Ohio to Pennsylvania. From all that can be determined from this record, McElroy at the times relevant to the events charged in this case, never left Pennsylvania. The record is completely equivocal as to how or where or from whom McElroy obtained the checks, and nothing appears in the record from which a jury could reasonably infer beyond a reasonable doubt that McElroy himself brought the checks from Ohio to Pennsylvania. The mere fact that McElroy made a telephone call to a dealer stating that he was in Ohio on the way to Pennsylvania is insufficient in my view to infer that he was indeed in Ohio at that time, particularly when there is testimony that he drove into the boat dealer’s lot from a dead end street. App. at 77A. It is undisputed that McElroy deliberately misled the boat and car dealers in other respects. Thus, it is not reasonable to infer that his statements concerning his intentions to return to Ohio and his statements as to his then whereabouts were not made for the same purpose.
III.
Having found the evidence insufficient to sustain McElroy’s conviction on Counts I and III, I would vacate the judgments of conviction and enter judgments of acquittal. When a conviction is vacated due to insufficient evidence, double jeopardy bars a retrial. Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978); Hudson v. State of Louisiana, - U.S. -, 101 S.Ct. 970, 67 L.Ed.2d 30 (1981). Even if the district court erroneously excluded evidence that would prove that McElroy had indeed transported the checks in interstate commerce, double jeopardy would prevent a new trial. Burks states that “it should make no difference that the reviewing court rather than the trial court, determined the evidence to be insufficient.” Id. 437 U.S. at 11, 98 S.Ct. at 2147. If the district court had entered a judgment of acquittal in this case, the government would have had no right to appeal, even if the district court’s decision was tainted by its erroneous exclusion of the government’s evidence. Sanabria v. United States, 437 U.S. 54, 98 S.Ct. 2170, 57 L.Ed.2d 43 (1978).
Thus, I fail to understand why an erroneous evidentiary ruling made by the district court should be deemed to have deprived the government of its “fair opportunity to offer whatever proof it could assemble.” Burks, 347 U.S. at 16, 98 S.Ct. at 2150, quoted in Hudson v. State of Louisiana, - U.S. at -, 101 S.Ct. at 972. While it is true that the government must have a fair opportunity to offer its proof, no ease to my knowledge has gone so far as to hold that a district court’s erroneous exclusion of government evidence may be claimed as a denial of that fair opportunity. Thus, in considering whether there is sufficient evidence to uphold the conviction, we are instructed to consider only the evidence admitted by the trial court. Since that evidence in this case is insufficient in my view, I conclude that a judgment of acquittal must be entered.
I would consequently vacate the convictions and direct the entry of judgments of acquittal on all three counts.

. I am “assuming” that under the majority’s analysis, which concentrates solely on the forgery element of the statute, evidence of forged checks drawn in Ohio but found in Pennsylvania would be sufficient to sustain a conviction. Thus, as I read the majority opinion, the “transporting” element of the statute is deemed to be subsumed within and satisfied by the “forgery” element. Yet I acknowledge that in addressing the sufficiency of the evidence, the majority opinion discusses inferences that a jury could draw that McElroy had brought (transported) the checks from Ohio to Pennsylvania. Maj. op. at 279. If that discussion is intended to require proof of a transporting element as well as a forgery element, then I have no disagreement with the majority as to its standard, but only as to the sufficiency of the evidence applied to that standard. However, my reading of the majority opinion leads me to believe that it has erred in the standard to which it subscribes, because it has apparently by its construction, read out of § 2314 the element of “[w]hoever . .. transports in interstate ... commerce ... ”.
The charge given by the district court in this case suffers from the same ambiguity and de-feet that I have found in the majority’s analysis. Under the district court’s charge, a jury could have found that the interstate commerce requirement was satisfied if the checks were drawn in Ohio (which is undisputed), found their way into Pennsylvania (which is undisputed), and were carried by McElroy in Pennsylvania (which is also undisputed), even though no proof existed that McElroy had transported the checks from Ohio to Pennsylvania. The district court charged at one point that:
transportation within the destination state here, Pennsylvania, may be considered transportation in interstate commerce if it is a continuation of the movement that began out of state.
It then charged:
Now, if you believe that the Government has shown that the Defendant transported the checks while they were in a forged condition within the State of Pennsylvania, the requirements of the law are satisfied if that transportation was part of interstate commerce. In other words, the check had to originate at sometime in Ohio and had to have been transported at sometime in Pennsylvania in order to effect interstate com*283merce. So the Government must prove this Defendant transported the checks involved in Counts 1 and 3 of the indictment in interstate commerce between Ohio and Pennsylvania, but need not prove the place in Ohio from which the checks started or from where the Defendant started.
App. 234a-236a
It appears to me that the last paragraph of the charge which I quote above more closely resembles the position which I have taken than the position advocated by the majority, but when it is combined with the earlier quoted instruction, I suggest that the charge is not clear. Nowhere in the charge does there appear an unequivocal statement that McElroy himself had to transport the checks from Ohio to Pennsylvania.

. It should not be forgotten that McElroy was not indicted for having caused the checks to be transported from Pennsylvania to Ohio, the route which the checks would have travelled had they entered the bank collection process in Pennsylvania. The indictments read “cause to be transported . .. from ... Ohio, to ... Pennsylvania. ...” Moreover, the indictments are drawn in the conjunctive and thus would require proof by the government that McElroy transported and caused to be transported the forged checks in interstate commerce. The indictments both read in pertinent part:
CHARLES RONALD McELROY a/k/a WILLIAM JONES, did with unlawful and fraudulent intent, transport and cause to be transported in interstate commerce from Youngstown, Ohio, to the Western District of Pennsylvania, a certain falsely made and forced security ... (emphasis added)

. I recognize that as to this issue the majority differs with my view of the evidence.