Court Opinion

ID: 9466583
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 01:20:11.979625+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:39:48.933894
License: Public Domain

McKAY, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur with the majority’s treatment of the issues concerning Count I of the indictment. I believe, however, that Part III of the majority opinion seriously undermines a fundamental tenet of our jurisprudence— that an accused defendant “be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation,” U.S.Const. amend. VI, in order that he may prepare and present his defense.
I agree with the majority that Judge Anderson, who presided at the pretrial hearing, imposed on the government the obligation to prove the six alleged events and transactions set out in Count II, but not each of the alternative subparts of § 17(a) of the Securities Act of 1933. However, I find no basis for the majority’s position that the trial judge did not reverse Judge Anderson on that more limited issue. I do not find in the trial judge’s language, reproduced by the majority at page 577 of its opinion, even the slightest room for doubt about the subject of his ruling.
A comparison of the pretrial hearing discussion with the trial judge’s jury instructions makes clear that the majority’s characterization is at odds with what in fact occurred. Immediately before his ruling, Judge Anderson engaged in the following colloquy with the government attorney:
THE COURT: Well, if [the six events and transactions] are all interrelated then you are saying you have to prove them all.
MR. SNARR: I am happy and comfortable with that, Your Honor. I am not sure I am willing to say at this point if I missed one I would not have proved the total scheme to the satisfaction of the jury. We think they are all part of the scheme and we had to charge them all and we would be attempting to prove them all in support of the one charge and that’s the scheme to defraud.
Record, vol. 1, at 22. Judge Anderson then charged the government with “proving all of those things.” Id. at 23. In contrast, the trial judge instructed the jury that the fraudulent scheme could be shown much more easily:
While a number of representations are alleged in the indictment, it is not incumbent upon the government to prove each and every one of them, but is incumbent upon the government to prove one or more, or a sufficient number of them to *579indicate and show to you beyond reasonable doubt that the scheme alleged was actually set up.
Record, supp. vol. 6, at 932. I cannot imagine a more sharply defined reversal of legal theories.
The implications of the majority’s opinion are especially troublesome. In this case the defendant properly believed that the government was working under one theory, and his defense was based upon that understanding. Only after his entire case was presented were the rules of the game changed. To hold, as the majority does, that the rulings “do not give rise to any prejudice,” maj. op. at 577, is to render the mandates of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments meaningless. Read expansively, but not unfairly, this decision permits the government to inform the accused of the “nature and cause of the accusation” after the completion of the trial.