Court Opinion

ID: 9460610
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:55:38.706816+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:42.278904
License: Public Domain

GEE, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
As noted at the outset, I find myself in disagreement with the Court’s disposition of the Count One and Count Three convictions.
COUNT THREE
Count Three of the indictment on which each defendant was convicted charges:
That, on or about October 10, 1970 in the Northern District of Georgia, Gerald McNally a/k/a Gerry, Richard F. Dimarzo a/k/a Dick Roberts, Lawrence Register a/k/a Larry Regenstein, James Burnett, Jimmy Ginn, Fred Hornsby and Daniel John Cochran a/k/a Danny, defendants herein, aided and abetted by each other and by persons to the Grand Jury unknown, did transfer, not in pursuance of a written order form issued in blank for that purpose by the Secretary of the Treasury or his delegate, approximately 3,250 pounds of marijuana, in violation of Section 4742(a), Title 26, United States Code.
The language used in Count Three reflects the peculiar nature of the old Marijuana Tax Act. As discussed in Leary v. United States, 395 U.S. 6, 14-15, 89 S.Ct. 1532, 23 L.Ed.2d 57 (1969), the transfer tax provisions, 26 U.S.C. §§ *10874741-4744,1 envisioned a fanciful world in which marijuana could legally be bought and sold: upon paying a tax to the IRS and furnishing the government with the name and address of the proposed vendor, the purchaser would obtain a written order form; the original of this form had to be given by the purchaser to any person who transferred marijuana to him. Two crimes were created: § 4744 made it unlawful for a transferee required to pay the tax either to acquire marijuana without having paid the tax or to transport, conceal, or facilitate the transportation or concealment of, any marijuana so acquired; with certain exceptions irrelevant here, § 4742 made it unlawful for any person *1088to transfer marijuana except pursuant to a written order form furnished by the transferee.
Leary, supra, held that the Fifth Amendment prohibits conviction under § 4744 for a transferee’s failure to incriminate himself by paying the tax. Minor v. United States, 396 U.S. 87, 90 S.Ct. 284, 24 L.Ed.2d 283 (1969), held, however, that conviction of a seller under § 4742(a) for transferring marijuana not pursuant to a written order form was not invalid in the face of a Fifth Amendment claim. Therefore, until its repeal, § 4742(a) was a constitutionally permissible vehicle for prosecuting transferors.
Clearly no form was presented to any of these three appellants or their agents. Thus they might properly have been convicted for any transfer of marijuana in which they participated. The prosecution’s problem was to find a “transfer.”
26 U.S.C. § 4761(4) provides: “The term ‘transfer’ or ‘transferred’ means any type of disposition resulting in a change of possession, but shall not include a transfer to a common carrier for the purpose of transporting marijuana.” Despite this broad definition, I have found no case in which § 4742(a) has been applied to one not a vendor, or at least a donor. The section has been applied in line with the statutory scheme envisioning a purchaser who pays the tax and obtains the forms which he then presents to his prospective vendor. Indeed, § 4742(c) speaks of the proposed vendor whose name and address are to be entered on the form.
Also, in my view these transfer tax provisions cannot properly be construed to make transferees “aiders and abettors” of the transferors who transfer marijuana to them not pursuant to the required form. To do so seems to me to violate the Supreme Court’s holding in Leary. Two distinct crimes are created by the Tax Act: one for transferees, one for transferors. Leary should not be evaded by blurring the two into one another.
In a somewhat analogous case, Lambert v. United States, 101 F.2d 960 (5th Cir. 1939), this court, on its own motion, discovered that the defendant had been convicted of conspiracy to sell morphine when all evidence indicated that he had acted in concert with the buyer. In the absence of proof that the defendant acted with the sellers to effect the sale, his conviction was held “manifestly unjust.” The same characterization seems to me required in the instant ease.
A thorough review of the records of both trials has uncovered absolutely no evidence of a “transfer” in Georgia on or about October 10, 1970, within my understanding of the meaning of § 4742(a). To me, the records compel the conclusion, moreover, that even if a requisite transfer did take place appellants were on the receiving end and cannot be convicted as “transferors.”
Viewing the evidence most favorably tq the government, appellants employed the pilot Sims, assisted by various undercover agents and informers, to fly to Jamaica and pick up marijuana purchased there by Richard Dimarzo according to instructions and with money furnished him by appellants. As instructed, Dimarzo paid the purchase price to his prearranged contact in Jamaica and saw that the marijuana was loaded aboard the plane. Dimarzo then joined Sims, his co-pilot and undercover agent Richel on the flight back to the States. When they landed at Fulton County Airport in Atlanta on the afternoon of October 10, Register and Horns-by were waiting with a rental van. The marijuana was unloaded into the van, which Hornsby drove away, followed by Register, until they were stopped and arrested.
The conclusion seems inescapable that those on the airplane were brought into the conspiracy as agents to pick up the contraband in Jamaica and deliver it to the organizers in the United States. As such, they did not “transfer” it to appellants within the meaning of § 4742(a) —any more than a “transfer” would occur each time a conspirator handed the *1089dope to a co-conspirator in transit prior to its ultimate “transfer” to a purchaser. I do not believe that this is the sort of taxable incident contemplated by the statutory scheme. Neither Sims, Dimarzo, or anyone else sent by the conspiracy to Jamaica “possessed” the contraband in his individual capacity; each handled it only as partner 2 and agent of the conspiracy.
In Good v. United States, 410 F.2d 1217 (5th Cir. 1969), cited by the majority in upholding the convictions on Count Three, we took pains to distinguish that case, in which there were “ . . . two distinct groups of people, the Mexican smugglers at one end and the American transferees at the other,” from the previous case of Marquez-Anaya v. United States, 319 F.2d 610 (5th Cir. 1963), in which there was “ . . . substantially an uninterrupted movement of the narcotics with no real transfer.” 410 F.2d at 1223. Here, unlike in Good, but as in Marquez-Anaya, the transferees did control the importation. I have no problem deciding which case ours more resembles.
A further anomaly in the majority’s reliance on Good is that there the defendant was convicted as a transferee rather than as a transferor. Here, even were the loading of the marijuana from the plane to the van viewed as a “transfer,” Hornsby, Register and Cochran should not be convicted of aiding and abetting that “transfer” to themselves by their agents. Within the conspiracy, they were the recipients, not the transferors. If any persons were transferors at the airport, they were the pilot and his crew who delivered the contraband to Hornsby and Register.
I would treat these convictions under Count Three of the indictment as plain error under Rule 52(b), Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. This would be necessary because defense counsel never called the inapplicability of § 4742(a) to the trial court’s attention; indeed, they did not call it to ours. Defendants moved to dismiss only Counts One and Two and have sufficiently expanded on appeal their arguments against these first two counts to expose their misunderstanding of the application of Leary to the old marijuana laws. Indeed, counsel for Hornsby and Cochran were so unaware of the essential elements of a § 4742(a) offense that, when the jury asked for a definition of the word “transfer,” they made no objection to a lengthy definition given by the trial court which essentially said that “transfer” meant “to get from one place or one person to another.” The only individual who the record reflects grasped the significance of the term was a juror who persistently pressed the court for a distinction between “transfer” and “transport” and “import.” Unfortunately, the court’s responses to this juror only blurred the critical distinction. At Register’s trial, no juror was so perceptive; there the jury found guilt on all three counts unguided by any definition of the word “transfer.” I would fault no one for failure to unravel the intricacies of the old Marijuana Tax Act in the heat of trial. The more measured consideration possible here, however, makes this error plain to me. Rule 52(b) exists to prevent such a clear miscarriage of justice. See Wright, Federal Practice and Procedure: Criminal, § 856, and cases cited therein.
COUNT ONE
Count One of the indictment charges:
That, beginning on or about September, 1970 and continuing to on or about October 21, 1970 in the Northern District of Georgia and elsewhere, in violation of Section 7237, Title 26, U.S.C., Gerald McNally a/k/a Gerry, Richard F. Dimarzo a/k/a Dick *1090Roberts, Lawrence Register a/k/a Larry Regenstein, James Burnett, Jimmy Ginn, Fred Hornsby and Daniel John Cochran a/k/a Danny, defendants herein, did unlawfully, willfully and knowingly combine, conspire, confederate and agree together and with each other and with Henry F. Maierhoffer and James Mobley, not named as defendants herein but named as co-conspirators and with various other persons whose names are to the Grand Jury unknown, to commit offenses against the laws of the United States, that is, to obtain, acquire, transport, conceal and facilitate the transportation and concealment of marijuana, in violation of Sections 4741 through 4744, Title 26, United States Code.
It goes on to charge numerous overt acts performed in furtherance of the conspiracy.
The crime charged in Count One was phrased in the language of 26 U.S.C. § 4744(a) — the “transferee” section of the Tax Act which Leary held invalid in the face of á Fifth Amendment claim. With the Leary holding in mind, defendant Cochran asserted his Fifth Amendment right and at various stages of the proceedings asked the court to dismiss Count One of the indictment. Perhaps discouraged by Cochran’s failure to prevail on the point, the other defendants made no attacks on the indictment prior to appeal. They, therefore, are essentially asking that we treat their convictions under Count One as plain error.
The trial court’s response to Leary was simply to strike the inclusion of § 4744 from Count One and, when it instructed each jury in the language of the indictment, merely to charge it in terms of a conspiracy to transport, etc., “ . . .in violation of Sections 4741 through 4743 of Title 26, United States Code.” The court then went on to give the jurors brief summaries of these three sections. Fundamentally the same instructions on Count One were given at both trials. The problem is that only § 4742(a) creates a criminal offense — that of transferring marijuana not pursuant to a written order form furnished by the transferee. Count One does not charge these men with conspiracy to “transfer” marijuana in violation of §§ 4741-4743. It charges them with conspiracy to “transport.” Pressed by a juror at Hornsby’s and Cochran’s trial, the judge emphasized that “transport” and “transfer” had quite different meanings in the context of the charge. I agree. After Leary and prior to the enactment of new statutes, persons who asserted their Fifth Amendment rights could not be convicted in federal court of transporting marijuana, or obtaining, acquiring, or concealing it, or facilitating such— except as part of a transfer. And no conspiracy to transfer was alleged.
Even if Count One be construed to charge a conspiracy to transport by means of a transfer not pursuant to the required forms, it still should not stand. Having been instructed in Count Three concerning an alleged transfer on October 10, there is the greatest likelihood that, if the jurors looked for the transfer which was the object of the conspiracy, they would focus on the loading of the marijuana from the plane to the truck — which I think was not a transfer within the meaning of § 4742(a). Some possibility perhaps exists that ingenious jurors would find, from the great amount of marijuana involved, a conspiracy to transport by means of an illegal transfer at some point in the future. But there was virtually no testimony concerning the conspirators’ future plans for the dope and no instruction bearing on possession with intent to distribute which would make this train of thought more likely. I cannot say with a straight face that Count One stood much chance of apprising the defendants of the charge against them or, as read in the jury instructions, adequately advised the jurors of the elements of the offense under the only valid reading of this Count. I would, therefore, find plain error.

. Insofar as here relevant, 26 U.S.C. §§ 4741-4744 provide:
§ 4741. Imposition of tax
(a) Rate. — There shall be imposed upon all transfers of marihauna which are required by section 4742 to be carried out in pursuance of written order forms taxes at the following rates:
(1) Transfers to special taxpayers.— Upon each transfer to any person who has paid the special tax and registered under sections 4751 to 4753, inclusive, $1 per ounce of marihuana or fraction thereof.
(2) Transfers to others. — -Upon each transfer to any person who has not paid the special tax and registered under sections 4751 to 4753, inclusive, $100 per ounce of marihuana or fraction thereof.
(b) By whom paid. — Such tax shall be paid by the transferee at the time of securing each order form and shall be in addition to the price of such form. Such transferee shall be liable for the tax imposed by this section but in the event that the transfer is made in violation of section 4742 without an order form and without payment of the transfer tax imposed by this section, the transferor shall also be liable for such tax.
§ 4743. Order forms (a) General requirement. — It shall be unlawful for any person, whether or not required to pay a special tax and register under sections 4751 to 4753, inclusive, to transfer marihuana, except in pursuance of a written order of the person to whom such marihuana is transferred, on a form to be issued in blank for that purpose by the Secretary or his delegate.
(c) Supply. — The Secretary or his delegate shall cause suitable forms to be prepared for the purposes mentioned in this section and shall cause them to be distributed to each internal revenue district for sale. The price at which such forms shall be sold shall be fixed by the Secretary or his delegate, but shall not exceed 2 cents each. Whenever any of such forms are sold, the Secretary or his delegate shall cause the date of sale, the name and address of the proposed vendor, the name and address of the purchaser, and the amount of marihuana ordered to be plainly written or stamped thereon before delivering the same.
(d) Preservation. — Each such order form sold by the Secretary or his delegate shall be prepared to include an original and two copies, any one of which shall be admissible in evidence as an original. The original and one copy shall be given to the purchaser thereof. The original shall in turn be given by the purchaser thereof to any person who shall, in pursuance thereof, transfer marihuana to him and shall be preserved by such person for a period of 2 years so as to be readily accessible for inspection by an officer or employee mentioned in section 4773. The copy given to the purchaser shall be retained by the purchaser and preserved for a period of 2 years so as to be readily accessible to inspection by any officer or employee mentioned in section 4773. The second copy shall be preserved in the records of the internal revenue district.
* * 5¡S * *
§ 4743. Affixing of stamps The stamps provided in section 4771(a) (1) for marihuana shall be affixed by the Secretary or his delegate to the original order form.
§ 4744- Unlawful possession (a) Persons in general. — It shall be unlawful for any person who is a transferee required to pay the transfer tax imposed by section 4741(a) — ■
(1) to acquire or otherwise obtain any marihuana without having paid such tax, or
(2) to transport or conceal, or in any manner facilitate the transporation or concealment of, any marihuana so acquired or obtained.
Proof that any person shall have had in his possession any marihuana and shall have failed, after reasonable notice and demand by the Secretary or his delegate, to produce the order form required by section 4742 to be retained by him shall be presumptive evidence of guilt under this subsection and of liability for the tax imposed by section 4741(a). >}c

. Characterizing the conspiracy as a partnership, as has often been done — see Ong Way Jong v. United States, 245 F.2d 392 (9th Cir. 1957); United States v. Rollnick, 91 F.2d 911 (2d Cir. 1937); Short v. United States, 91 F.2d 614 (4th Cir. 1937) — the marijuana would be analogous to “partnership property” possessed by partners as agents for partnership purposes.