Court Opinion

ID: 9461156
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:07:27.340726+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:55.374950
License: Public Domain

HIRAM H. WARD, District Judge
(concurring):
The panel does not disagree that under the West Virginia Supreme Court’s interpretation of Sections 4 and 5, Article 5, Chapter 61 of the West Virginia Code in Carson 1 and Gillespie2 a person occupying Johnkoski’s position is not a bribable public official. The trial of this case, unfortunately, occurred prior to those decisions, and the able District Judge instructed the jury (as any trial judge would have done under the circumstances) to include Johnkoski as such an official. Irrespective of what we may think of the majority opinions in Carson and Gillespie, we do agree that these decisions are binding upon us.
The indictment here charged the defendant, and others, with conspiring to violate 18 U.S.C. § 1952 and is premised upon the giving and receiving of bribes in violation of the West Virginia statutes referred to above. Therefore, if the jury believed the testimony of the witness, James Render, which involved only his activities with the defendant and Johnkoski, it could have convicted the defendant on this evidence alone pursuant to the Court’s instructions, subsequently made erroneous by Carson and Gillespie because Johnkoski was included as a bribable official. On the other hand there is an abundance of evidence by one Isadore Lashinsky of his illegal activities involving both Sawyers (who was a bribable public official under the statute) and Johnkoski which would drop the net over this *264defendant because of his activities with Johnkoski. Lashinsky originally refused to testify, asserting his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, but subsequently testified under a grant of immunity.
The question at this point then becomes which one, or both, of these witnesses did the jury believe. If the answer is Render alone, the conviction cannot stand under the District Court’s instructions. If the answer is Lashin-sky, or both Lashinsky and Render, the conviction should be affirmed. These are questions that cannot be answered from the cold record without engaging in speculation and conjecture for we know not what transpired within the jury room. Consequently, I believe it my duty to vote for reversal and to remand for a new trial, while at the same time agreeing with the dissent that such “ . . . does not really help the defendant except to postpone the inevitable day . . . .”

. State ex rel. Carson v. Wood, 154 W.Va. 397, 175 S.E.2d 482 (1970).

. State ex rel. Gillespie v. Wood, 154. W.Va. 422, 175 S.E.2d 497 (1970).