Court Opinion

ID: 9471293
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 03:28:36.945643+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:42:20.449918
License: Public Domain

BUTZNER, Senior Circuit Judge,
dissenting:
I
In 32 states which do not recognize common law marriages, a soldier’s widow can live with a man without forfeiting her pension or suffering prosecution for fraud because she signed the identical form the defendant signed. When the government through criminal prosecution draws a distinction between the marital status of soldiers’ widows living in 18 states and those *1287living in the other 32, the government should be required to give fair notice that signing a form, which it provides, is a criminal act in some states although innocent in others.
At the most, the record discloses a civil controversy between the government and the defendant over her entitlement to a pension. Apparently this is the initial prosecution for fraud against a soldier’s widow who has not disclosed her common law marriage. Consummating a common law marriage is not a criminal offense. Therefore, when the basis for a conviction for violating 18 U.S.C. §§ 1001 and 1921 is the nondisclosure of a common law marriage and the receipt of a pension after such a marriage, due process of law requires that the defendant have some notice that this relationship must be reported. See Lambert v. California, 355 U.S. 225, 78 S.Ct. 240, 2 L.Ed.2d 228 (1957). The statute itself does not give this notice. Nowhere in § 1921 is there a definition of marriage or an elaboration of the means of becoming married.
Furthermore, the “continuance of compensation” forms — the basis for defendant’s conviction for misrepresenting her marital status — did not give this notice. Indeed, these forms mislead a soldier’s widow with respect to the necessity of reporting a common law marriage. The forms require information only as to whether the widow had remarried and, if so, when and where the remarriage was performed. This would cause a reasonable pensioner to conclude that the government was interested only in reports of formally celebrated remarriages. A person has no obligation to inquire about the meaning of a government form which contains a latent ambiguity. United States v. Race, 632 F.2d 1114, 1121 (4th Cir.1980).
Similarly, the “notice to payee” sent to the defendant required a copy of the public record of marriage. This, too, would mislead the soldier’s widow into believing that only celebrated marriages were required to be reported. This ambiguity in the government’s definition of marriage is particularly inexcusable when the widow’s representation that she had not entered into a marriage is the sole basis for her conviction of criminal fraud.
To sustain the prosecution by showing notice, the government relies primarily on a handwritten statement signed by the defendant in 1962 some 15 years before the prosecution. In it she said she had “not remarried or entered into a common law marital relationship.” The statement, apparently written by a government agent, did not notify the defendant that upon entering into a common law marriage her pension would be terminated, nor did it advise her that such a relationship must be reported. It did not inform her that such a relationship was a “marriage” within contemplation of § 1921 providing criminal penalties for receipt of a pension after marriage. Her statement that she had not “remarried or entered into a common law marital relationship” was true. It was made before she moved in with Coke Seay.
Consequently, I am unable to accept the government’s contention that the 1962 statement adequately notified the defendant that execution of a “continuation of compensation” form would constitute a fraudulent misrepresentation punishable by federal criminal law. Also, in light of the misleading text of the “continuation of compensation” form and the “notice to payee,” she was not provided adequate notice that receipt of her pension after a common law marriage was a crime. As Lambert v. California, 355 U.S. 225, 78 S.Ct. 240, 2 L.Ed.2d 228 (1957), demonstrates, adequate notice is an essential component of due process when the prohibited conduct is not blameworthy in itself. Lambert involved a municipal ordinance that made it a crime for felons to fail to register with the police department. The Supreme Court held that the ordinance violated due process when applied to a person who had no actual knowledge of the duty to register and there was no proof of the probability of such knowledge. Lambert, 355 U.S. at 229-30, 78 S.Ct. at 243-44. Similarly, in this prosecution, the evidence did not show that the defendant had actual knowledge of the duty to report her common law marriage. *1288Nor was there proof of the probability of such knowledge, for, as I have pointed out, the forms the government furnished her were misleading because they referred only to ceremonial marriages. Here, as in Lambert, the defendant was denied due process of law because she did not receive from the government adequate notice of her statutory obligations arising out of her residence in a state that recognizes common law marriage.
II
Another aspect of the case demonstrates that the defendant has been deprived of her liberty without due process of law. During the defendant’s cross-examination, the prosecutor set about what best can be described as a theological inquisition. The record reveals numerous attempts by the prosecutor to inject religious issues in this jury trial. Referring to her contributions to her .church, the prosecutor asked her if she gave “the widow’s mite.” After testifying that she swore she did not continuously live with Coke Seay, the prosecutor asked: “Didn’t Jesus teach us that we are to be known by our work and that we are not to swear to things?” The prosecutor also examined her extensively from the Bible and about her beliefs concerning marriage and fornication. I have set forth in the margin excerpts from this impermissible cross-examination.* Although they illustrate the ob*1289jectionable tenor of this prosecution, only by reading the entire transcript can one apprehend the prejudice the prosecutor sought to engender. It is quite apparent that the prosecutor’s theological excursion injected into this trial the prejudicial notion that even if the defendant did not enter into a common law marriage with Coke Seay, she violated the “law of God” against fornication as expounded by the Bible. When a prosecutor oversteps the bounds of propriety and fairness in his cross-examination and it is impossible to say that the jury was not influenced by this misconduct, the conviction must be reversed. See Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 84-89, 55 S.Ct. 629, 631-633, 79 L.Ed. 1314 (1934).
Ill
The prosecutor’s cross-examination was exacerbated by the instructions to the jury. In explaining the intent necessary to consummate a common law marriage, the court charged:
The intent in marriage consists of living together by agreement of a man and woman as husband and wife, according to what we know to be the law of this state and according to what we believe to be the law of God.
Overruling an objection to the “law of God,” the court stated: “Well, that was taken from a South Carolina Supreme Court decision.”
This charge was likely to mislead the jury into thinking they could convict the defendant by ascertaining her intent “according to what we believe to be the law of God.” The basis for this religious belief had been laid by the prosecutor’s scriptural references to marriage and fornication. It was reinforced by the court’s overruling of the objection pertaining to the injection of fornication into the trial of this case. I am persuaded the injection of these religious issues into this criminal trial deprived the defendant of the fundamental fairness *1290which the due process clause was intended to assure as a hallmark of every criminal trial.
Also, the district court’s charge that the elements of a common law marriage in South Carolina require an intent to enter into a marital relationship, “according to what we believe to be the law of God” inextricably introduced into this trial a religious test that runs afoul of the first amendment. In Presbyterian Church v. Hull Church, 393 U.S. 440, 89 S.Ct. 601, 21 L.Ed.2d 658 (1969), the trial court found it necessary to weigh the significance and meaning of religious doctrines in order to resolve a property dispute. The Supreme Court held that the judgment must be reversed because courts cannot, consistently with the first amendment, determine ecclesiastical questions. 393 U.S. at 449-50, 89 S.Ct. at 606. Here, too, the judgment must be reversed because the court’s charge impermissibly required the jury to determine the “law of God” in deciding whether the defendant had entered into a common law marriage.
Alternatively, the charge renders the concept of a South Carolina common law marriage impermissibly vague in the context of a federal criminal prosecution. In Papachristou v. City of Jacksonville, 405 U.S. 156, 162, 92 S.Ct. 839, 843, 31 L.Ed.2d 110 (1972), the Court held that a Jacksonville vagrancy ordinance was void for vagueness because it failed “to give a person of ordinary intelligence fair notice that his contemplated conduct is forbidden by the statute” and encouraged arbitrary enforcement.
In this prosecution, the question of the defendant’s intent when she lived with Coke Seay was central to the government’s case. Without the intent to enter into a common law marriage, she could not be convicted under either § 1001 or § 1921 of the federal criminal code. Ecclesiastical history reveals that reasonable people have. frequently differed over the meaning and content of the “law of God.” The defendant, however, was convicted of a crime because an essential element of her marital status was determined by a jury according to what its members believed to be the “law of God.” In view of the differences that reasonable persons can ascribe to the “law of God,” this standard is impermissibly vague.
A widow of reasonable intelligence, charged with a crime for which guilt is dependent on proof of disputed marital status, cannot foretell whether her receipt of a pension is a crime when proof of her status depends on what individual members of a jury believe to be the “law of God.”
Consequently, applying the principles explained in Papachristou, I conclude that the religious standard adopted by the district court in its charge rendered the concept of a South Carolina common law marriage so vague that the defendant was convicted without due process of law.
I would reverse the judgment of conviction.

 Q You agree with me that marriage is ordained by God?
A I certainly do.
Q And now, it is not a sacrament in the Baptist church. I believe it’s a sacrament in the Catholic church, but it’s not a sacrament in the Baptist church.
A I don’t know what a sacrament is.
Q Well, there are only two sacraments in the Baptist church, the Lord’s Supper and baptism.
A That’s correct.
Q But you do agree with me that marriage is ordained by God?
A I certainly do.
Q Okay. I noticed yesterday you were carrying a Bible. Do you have it today?
A Yes, I do. It’s right there. That is a Bible that my parents gave to me in 1940.
Q King James version?
A That’s exactly right.
Q Do you mind if I use the New American Standard?
A I don’t like that.
Q I am sorry. You mind if I use it?
A I don’t mind if you use it, but I don’t like it.
Q Turn with me if you will to Genesis 2, verses 18 and 24.
A All right.
Q Do you have it? Permit me to read it.
“Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make him a helper suitable for him.’ ”
Skipping down to verse 24.
“For this cause a man shall leave his father and his mother and shall cleave to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Doesn’t say anything about a woman leaving her father and mother.
******
Q Turn with me if you will to Matthew 15, verse 19.
A All right.
Q Do you have that?
A I certainly do.
Q Jesus is speaking. Okay?
A All right.. I know that. Mine is in red.
Q Mine too. “For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.”
Q All right. First Corinthians, 6. Do you have it? First Corinthians, 6, verses 9 through 11.
******
A All right.
Q Paul writing to the Church at Corinth. “Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers shall inherit the kingdom of God, and such were some of you, but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the spirit of our God.”
Q The gospel.
A That’s correct. My gospel here, Mr. Ruschky. I do not like the wording of the new ones. It brings in about people that I don’t appreciate.
Q May I ascribe that to our difference in age, Ma’am?
A Yes, you may.
Q You know what fornication is? MR. BELL [defense attorney]: Your honor, we object. This case is not having to do with adultery. It has to do with defrauding the government.
MR. RUSCHKY [prosecutor]: I didn’t ask her what adultery was.
MR. BELL: We object to it. Fornication has nothing to do with this case. She has admitted this thing—
*1289THE COURT: Well, I think he can ask her if she knows what it is.
MR. BELL: Your honor, we also object because it is highly prejudicial. Mr. Ruschky knows what he is trying to do. He is trying to get someone to look at her as being a sinful woman against God, instead of a breaker of the law.
THE COURT: I understand your position. You have said enough. Go ahead, Mr. Rushcky.
By Mr. Ruschky:
Q Well, we are all sinners.
******
Q You know what fornication is?
A No. I will tell you that. I don’t know what fornication is.
Q Permit me to read you the definition from the South Carolina State Code.
MR. BELL: I object to that again. Further object. She has said she doesn’t know what it is.
I object to Mr. Ruschky trying to read to the jury and to this court what fornication is. It has nothing to do with the elements in this case.
MR. RUSCHKY: I will hand it up, let her read it for herself.
MR. BELL: Object, your honor.
THE COURT: I don’t see any objection to her reading it. I don’t understand what he intends to do.
MR. BELL: We would object. It’s irrelevant and immaterial.
THE COURT: Let’s just stay away from these things, Mr. Ruschky.
MR. RUSCHKY: Your honor, there is more to fornication—
THE COURT: All right. I will let you go ahead, since it’s gotten to this point.
By Mr. Ruschky:
Q You want to just read it, Ma’am?
A If it pleases you.
Q Well, I am not particularly pleased with it.
THE WITNESS: “Fornication defined. Fornication is the living together and carnal intercourse with each other or habitual carnal intercourse with each other without living together of a man and woman, both being unmarried.”
Q —You understand then that you were living with Coke Seay, living with him for approximately 18 years,—
A Not all that time, Mr. Ruschky. I beg to differ with you, sir....
I have not continuously lived in that house.
Q All right. I mean you say that.
A Yes, I say it, and I swear to it.
Q Now, it’s not necessary for you to say that you swear to it. You are already under oath.
A That’s right. That’s exactly right. But I reiterate, please, sir.
Q Didn’t Jesus teach us that we are to be known by our word and that we are not to swear to things?