Court Opinion

ID: 9452368
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 17:38:46.353422+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:11.204605
License: Public Domain

BURGER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
Although a majority of the Court agree on the disposition of this case, I think it is important to note that there is no opinion of the Court; indeed Judge McGowan and I are in agreement with respect to the basic question in the case, namely the standard to be applied in determining under what circumstances a four-month purposeful delay will preclude prosecution.
Judge Bazelon takes an entirely new and different approach, voting to reverse on the ground that the method and quality of the identification of Appellant were so doubtful as to render unreasonable even a four-month delay between the narcotics sale and Appellant’s arrest. Judge McGowan votes to reverse only because he concludes that in the peculiar circumstances shown here the delay prejudiced Appellant’s ability to defend himself since in the interval between the alleged offense and the arrest a friend who Appellant now1 claims could have assisted his defense died. Judge McGowan’s narrow basis for his position in this case assumes particular significance since as an author of Ross he affirmatively rejects Judge Bazelon’s basis for reversal. I agree with Judge McGowan that the crucial question before us here is whether there was prejudice to the defendant’s case, not whether the identification was inadequate. I differ with Judge McGowan’s assessment of the prejudice present in this case.
The application of Ross to a particular case turns on three operative elements: (1) the length of the purposeful delay; (2) the basis of the identification of the defendant; and (3) the claimed effect of the delay in rebutting the identification, i.e., the resulting prejudice. It is the existence of a purposeful delay and a Koss-type identification that permits a *221lesser degree of prejudice to reverse; without those factors the narcotics defendant would be required to show substantial and specific prejudice.2 Thus, the shorter the period of delay3 or the better the method of identification,4 the greater the prejudice which must be shown.
Ross recognized that there was a crucial need as well as a valid purpose for undercover narcotics investigations and that some purposeful delays between the offense and the arrest were inevitable. The underlying premise which led the court to upset the conviction in that case, therefore, was that the method of identification present in Ross need not preclude a conviction if the delay were shorter than the seven-month delay present in that case. Although it did not decide where the fulcrum should lie, it stated that balancing society’s need for undercover investigations with the defendant’s right to have a fair opportunity to defend himself would permit some period of purposeful delay which would provide the Police Department “some considerable latitude for the planning and organization of its undercover program.”5 The Court indicated, furthermore, that this balancing might well permit a four-month delay. Implicit in Ross was the assumption that it was directed at identifications made in a similar fashion, the frequent recurrence of which in narcotics prosecutions had been one of the motivating factors behind it.
Since the identification in the present case was made by the same method as in Ross, the uncorroborated testimony of the undercover agent based on contemporaneous notes, the second of the three factors remains constant, and since the delay here is three months shorter, any opinion reversing bears the heavy burden of showing greater prejudice to fall within Ross.
Judge Bazelon, however, does not take this course. While purporting to rely on the principles enunciated in Ross, he goes far beyond the holding of that or indeed any other recorded case. He pays lip service to Ross by saying that “a delay of four months is not so unreasonable as to warrant reversal absent special circumstances.” He uses Ross not as authority, however, but only as a launching pad from which he spells out as “special” the kind of circumstances and factors which this court had previously considered tolerable in a delay so short as four months.
The “special” circumstances Judge Bazelon finds in the instant ease are the “unreliability of the process by which [Woody] was identified” and “the absence of police efforts to reduce the prejudice.” The latter is clearly not a “circumstance” of any kind. As to the claimed unreliable identification, the same agent and the same undercover investigation and the same processes are involved in this case as in Ross, save that here they are stronger.
Judge Bazelon, however, apparently feels that the “delay of over one week after sale before the identification by photograph” in this case is a special circumstance requiring reversal. Here the agent testified he was shown photographs by his superiors practically every day and that he identified Woody “shortly” after the sale, within a week or ten days. In Ross the record discloses the agent testified he identified Ross by photograph “a short time” after the sale. What is the difference? Moreover, the more relevant consideration would seem to be not how soon the agent identifies a suspect but how soon he is shown photographs; the very fact that he apparently examined many photographs before choosing Woody’s strengthens, rather than weakens, the *222resulting identification and shows how chimerical is the professed fear that “this method of identification encourages a show of certainty where none may exist.” This is a search for absolute perfection in a process already hedged by countless safeguards, including trial by 12 laymen and the potent matter of cross-examining the witness to demonstrate to the jury that the identification rests on fragile grounds if such is the case.
Judge Bazelon also complains that the agent's notes for use against Woody are incomplete. But in Ross the agent did not make notes of a detailed description of the suspect which included clothing or scars; yet it is the absence of these details as to Woody that Judge Bazelon finds a “special circumstance” for reversal. Moreover we are left in total darkness as to how clothing worn on August 8 could be relevant in identifying a suspect in December.
Another “special circumstance” which looms large to Judge Bazelon is his inference that “the undercover agent, new to the force, and to some extent ‘on trial,’ inevitably feels under pressure to ‘produce.’ ” Not a shred of evidence is cited to support his speculations. He would have us believe that identifications made by police “rookies” are unreliable as a matter of law. One might argue with at least equal logic — if it can be called by that name — that police “rookies” who are “on trial" are likely to be more careful, more conscientious and more precise in making notes.
There is a total absence of any special circumstances to justify Judge Bazelon’s attempted extension of Ross, v/hich is a case to be read restrictively since it represents the outer limit of burdens placed on the prosecution of narcotics peddlers.
No matter how short the period of necessary and purposeful delay, a defendant may prevail if he can show sufficient prejudice. In Ross itself the delay was thought perhaps to have caused both the defendant and a potentially helpful witness to forget their actions on the day of the alleged sale. Subsequent cases have reinforced Ross in this respect by requiring that some prejudice be shown and that purposeful delay and a .Ross-type identification do not themselves constitute prejudice.6 The shorter the period of delay, the more is the prejudice which must be shown.7 When it reduces the period of purposeful delay, society has contributed to the balancing of interests; the more it sacrifices, the greater must be the defendant’s prejudice as a result of what purposeful delay there is to prevent conviction.
Judge McGowan and I seem to be in accord on this aspect but we diverge on the quantum of prejudice present in this case as a result of the four-month delay. It is Judge McGowan’s primary position that the death of the woman with whom Appellant said he had been living in the summer of 1962 requires reversal. I disagree.
Appellant was accused of making a sale on August 8,1962. He was arrested on December 5, 1962. The woman (Mrs. Blocker) died on November 24, 1962. Judge McGowan seems to lean on the fact that the death occurred in the later stages of the delay, thus implying that if Appellant had been arrested before the lady’s death on, for example, November 1, her absence either would have been less prejudicial to the defense or the prejudice less related to the delay. The former is obviously speculative. If Appellant had been arrested on November 1, and assuming his arrest had enabled Mrs. Blocker to reconstruct successfully the events of midnight August 8. she would nevertheless not have been available for trial, for by that time she would *223have been dead.8 The implication that the time of the death is related in some way causally to the delay is completely untenable; there is no nexus between the delay and the death, except the totally irrelevant factor that the death happened to occur in the latter stages of the delay.
Mrs. Blocker died three and a half months after the sale; Appellant’s case could not have been reached for trial in that period. Even if he had been arrested the day after the sale, Appellant would not have had the “benefit” of Mrs. Blocker’s testimony.
Furthermore, even if Mrs. Blocker had been available, there is not a scintilla of evidence to suggest that her testimony would have helped Appellant. Judge McGowan himself realizes that the lady represented at best a “slender hope.” I suggest that a conviction ought not be reversed on such slender hopes and judicial speculations. I assume his evaluation of the fragility of this hope arises from the reasonable inference that an on-and-off “familial” relationship is hardly a basis for judicially presuming a pattern of behavior that would have Appellant home at midnight watching a favorite TV program, especially since the record is barren of any supporting evidence.
If Mrs. Blocker’s testimony would have been helpful, one would expect that at least her existence and absence would have been in some way noted on the record at trial. It was not until the hearing on remand that Mrs. Blocker is mentioned at all. Appellant was asked with whom he was living at the time of the sale and he gave the name of his landlady. Prodded further, he said he was living with .Mrs. Blocker — “off and on.”9 Despite this testimony and despite the fact that there is not a shred of testimony that Appellant would have been with Mrs. Blocker on the August 8 midnight — the time of $he sale — Judge McGowan rests reversal on a belief that “we may suppose” Appellant would normally have been in her company.10 I suggest that this record is utterly barren of anything from which “we may suppose” this critical fact that leads this court to set Woody free on the streets of Washington to peddle more narcotics. A supposition leading to a “slender hope” relating to an “off and on” lady friend simply does not warrant reversal of this conviction.11
I submit that reversal of this case either for Judge McGowan’s reasons or Judge Bazelon’s, or both combined, is but another step in the process of undermining the “slender hope” the public can have that narcotics laws will be enforced effectively.

. No such claim was made as to this witness before trial, at trial or on appeal but only after we remanded.

. See United States v. Ewell, 383 U.S. 116, 86 S.Ct. 773, 15 L.Ed.2d 627 (1966).

. See Roy v. United States, 123 U.S.App.D.C. 32, 356 F.2d 785 (1965); Worthy v. United States, 122 U.S.App.D.C. 242, 352 F.2d 718 (1965); Jackson v. United States, 122 U.S.App.D.C. 124, 351 F.2d 821 (1965).

. See Bey & El v. United States, 121 U.S.App.D.C. 337, 350 F.2d 467 (1965).

. Ross v. United States, 121 U.S.App.D.C. 233, 236, 349 F.2d 210, 213 (1965).

. See Jackson v. United States, 122 U.S.App.D.C. 124, 351 F.2d 821 (1965); Cannady v. United States, 122 U.S.App.D.C. 120, 351 F.2d 817 (1965); Mackey v. United States, 122 U.S.App.D.C. 97, 351 F.2d 794 (1965).

. Supra, p. 220.

. Mrs. Blocker apparently died unexpectedly and suddenly as a result of a heart attack. There would have been no basis for taking her deposition. Fed.R.Crim. P.15.

. Emphasis added.

. This contrasts with Ross, where the Appellant produced a witness with whom he had been living at the time of the offense who said he was with her every night, caring for her during pregnancy, but who could not remember the events of the day in question.

. Nor do I find any prejudice resulting from the delay in the fact that Porch invoked the Fifth Amendment when called by Appellant. The conditions that led him to fear self-incrimination were as crucial and relevant before his arrest as after. Since Porch had been arrested by the time of trial, he had the benefit of counsel to advise him as to his rights. But, of course, it is not unusual for District Judges to appoint counsel for witnesses who are not under indictment to ensure they are aware of their rights.