Court Opinion

ID: 9456295
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:48:02.087138+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:34:55.266951
License: Public Domain

MacKINNON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
My dissent in this case goes only to the decision of the panel that the evidence is sufficient to support the verdict. On the other points I would be in general agreement.
It is the thesis of the government that Harris’ conviction of aiding and abetting the payroll robbery of the Merkle Printing plant is supported by the following collocation of facts and circumstances:
(1) testimony that the gun,- which was used in the robbery and which wounded the victim was purchased by Harris;
(2) the bill of sale, Government Exhibit #11, which clearly established that Harris was the owner of the Chevy II Nova which was the get away vehicle for the three men, and the testimony that it was found near his apartment within an hour of the robbery with its engine warm;
(3) testimony that Henson, who was identified as one of the robbers, was arrested in Harris’ apartment shortly after the robbery, and that the three guns used in the robbery and approximately $5,000 were recovered there;
(4) testimony that Harris was an employee of Merkle Press on the date of the offense and that only employees, or possibly ex-employees, could have known how the payroll was delivered; and
(5) the fact that Harris was the only employee who did not pick up his paycheck following the theft of the payroll.
Thus Harris’ conviction rests entirely upon circumstantial evidence. The basic deficiency I find in the government’s evidence is that it fails to include proof of any factual element from which it can be concluded that Harris knowingly participated in the robbery and sought by his actions to make it succeed. The requisite knowledge can of course be proved by circumstantial evidence, but to do so there must be proof of some fact that fairly tends to prove the knowledge with which the acts were done. It is in this area of the inferences or conclusions that can fairly and reasonably be drawn from the foregoing testimonial facts that I part company with the government and the panel opinion. To me the panel opinion relies, as it must because of the absence of adequate connecting evidence, upon too many remote inferences which in turn rest upon too many intervening inferences. In so doing it fails to give adequate weight to the fact that there are other adequate explanations than the ones they arrive at for the conclusions they advance as the basis of decision. In so doing they fail to adequately consider and exclude other reasonable possibilities. I do not contend that they must negate every other reasonable hypothesis except that of guilt but I do contend that the conviction cannot rest, to the extent that it rests here, upon pure speculation and conjecture.
The government is not powerless in these cases. Guilty knowledge and active participation by one who aids and abets the commission of a crime may be proved in many ways.
False statements by the accused could furnish proof of the necessary guilty knowledge, Fox v. United States, 381 F.2d 125, 129 (9th Cir. 1967); or proof that the alleged accessory knew of the principal’s criminal record and attempted to cover it up, Costello v. United States, 255 F.2d 389, 409 (8th Cir. 1958); or by proof that the alleged aider must have known of the crime because he shared such large sums of money, Logs-don v. United States, 253 F.2d 12,14 (6th *93Cir. 1958); or that the alleged aider received part of the illegal proceeds from the crime or otherwise indicated by his actions that he was familiar with the details of the crime, King v. United States, 402 F.2d 289, 290-291 (10th Cir. 1968); or that he received funds without the usual formalities or made an arrangement to conceal the transaction, United States v. Daileda, 229 F.Supp. 148 (D.Pa.1964).
All of these cases hold that proof of guilty knowledge is an essential element to a conviction for aiding and abetting. In the words of Learned Hand, it must be proved that the accused have a “purposive attitude” toward the crime. United States v. Peoni, 100 F.2d 401, 402 (2d Cir. 1938).
A casual examination of the five facts cited by the Government is sufficient to demonstrate that none of them contains any ingredients of evidence that fairly tends to prove the accused with guilty knowledge participated in the crime. None of the five facts are of acts by the appellant that aided the crime. Rather, the five facts are chiefly stationary facts, not operative facts connected with the crime.
The record is completely silent as to how the gun and ear that were sold to the accused came into the possession of the principals. There is absolutely no evidence that the accused voluntarily loaned them or that if he did that he knew or had any reason to suspect what use they would be put to by the principals. It is just as reasonable to suppose that one or more of the robbers were living with Harris and that they borrowed the car and gun without his knowledge and, if he knew, more importantly without his knowing the use they intended to put them to. Also, the robbers may have had an interest in the car and may have previously purchased the gun. As for the principals being arrested an hour after the crime at an apartment leased to Harris, nothing in that fact carries with it any implication that Harris knowingly and actively participated in the crime. As stated above, some of them may have been living with Harris. The fact that the robbers came there after the crime is not probative in any respect of the intent with which Harris committed any act. What is of some adverse significance to the Government’s contention is that Harris was not at his apartment an hour after the crime and the trial record is completely devoid of any evidence as to where Harris was at that time. He was not at work, since according to his time card he had punched out at 4:30 (maybe 4:35 actually).1
This then brings us to the fourth fact upon which the government attempts to build some inference out of the fact of Harris’ employment at the Merkle Press, but the record in this respect is woefully deficient, and the panel opinion now recognizes this to some extent. The Government attempted to establish that only an employee of Merkle Press would know the time and means used to pay off Merkle’s employees. But, in offering such testimony into evidence the first question and answer was improper and was stricken and according to the record the United States Attorney did not wait for an answer to his second question.2 Further, on cross-examination, *94this broad answer was somewhat reduced to more reasonable proportions when the same witness admitted that “only those employees who had observed it * * * [the pattern of the route of getting the money and bringing it over and paying the employees] * * * would know the pattern.” There was no evidence that Harris had observed the pattern. He worked in the Shipping Department but his precise duties there and the area in which he worked were not precisely described. Neither was there any evidence that Harris in his employment had the opportunity to know of the payroll pattern, particularly the one that was used on the day of the robbery. It was also admitted that ex-employees might know the pattern, but the government’s witness testified he did not know whether close relatives of employees and former employees like husband and wife would know about the pattern. Obviously, they might, and this could be a very large group as the same payroll pattern had been going on since prior to 1957, over ten years prior to the robbery. There was thus a very large group of people who had an equal opportunity with Harris (if he had such opportunity) to know the pattern. So there is nothing in the fourth fact to prove participation with guilty knowledge on the part of Harris.
The fifth and final fact is that Harris was the only one in the Shipping Department who did not pick up his paycheck after the robbery. Ordinarily Harris and the other employees were paid by cash, but on this particular day because of the robbery of the cash, they were paid slightly later by check. According to the testimony the robbery was committed at about 4 P.M. and the Shipping Department employees were paid that day by checks “distributed * * * at approximately a quarter after or twenty after four.” Harris’ time card showed he punched in at 8:01 A.M. and out at 4:30 P.M. The time clock was apparently five minutes slow (Tr. 113) so Harris may have punched out at 4:35 P.M. Whether the time of distribution of the Shipping Department cheeks was similarly five minutes behind actual time we do not know; but the lack of precise evidence as to how the Shipping Department employees were notified they would be paid by check or as to the proximity of their place of payment to the time clock (where Harris punched out), and as to whether Harris was notified that he could be paid by check or was in the area where he should have learned of such fact, all tend to destroy the effectiveness of this evidence to serve the Government’s purpose. The fact that Harris did not pick up his paycheck was not inherently wrongful, it was not related to the robbery in any way and it carried no reasonable inference of knowledgeable participation in the robbery. If Harris had picked up his check it would not have proved that he did not aid the robbery and failing to pick it up does not force a contrary conclusion. At best, it was only a circumstance after the crime and is not as incriminating as unexplained flight jointly with a robber which has been held to be insufficient evidence to support a finding of guilty knowledge in aiding and abetting.3 I suppose the government contends the check incident shows a consciousness of guilt but I submit that conclusion is too remote. To the extent that the payroll circumstance arguably indicates anything with respect *95to Harris’ association with the crime, it could equally be explained by the fact that Harris might have been upset by seeing people he knew rob the payroll (if he saw them), or by the fact that he did not receive notice that they were going to pay by cheek. But he was not at his apartment an hour later when the principals were arrested and this circumstance cannot be ignored. So without more precise testimony the payroll circumstance cannot be said to be probative of the fact that must be proved that Harris knowingly participated in the robbery.
None of these five facts have any ingredient implicit in their circumstances that fairly tends to prove that Harris had a “purposive attitude” 4 to associate himself with the crime, participate in it as something he wished to bring about and seek by his action to make it succeed.5 To reach such conclusion would involve first assuming from the proven fact that the principals had Harris’ car and gun, that Harris voluntarily loaned them to the principals and the further assumption that he knew they were going to be used to rob the payroll at his place of employment. On this record, such findings would be pure conjecture, as such conclusions as to intent are too remote from proven facts which are not probative of intent.6 An excellent analysis of the evidentiary limitations of circumstantial evidence is set forth in Part I of Judge Robb’s dissent in United States v. Johnson, 139 U.S.App.D.C. 193, 432 F.2d 626 (1970). My own views coincide with his statement of the applicable law but not with its application to the facts of that case. This case is a much more extreme application of the errors he points out there.
When I point out that the circumstantial evidence relied upon by the government had no “ingredient” fairly tending to prove Harris guilty of the offense charged, I mean that there is nothing in the facts that Harris may have owned the car or the gun or have leased the apartment or worked at the plant or failed to pick up his check after the robbery that is probative of any act committed by Harris. It is all evidence that must rely upon too much inference to furnish a base for a conclusion that Harris acted to assist the robbers knowing that they were going to commit a crime. If there had been any evidence in connection with any one of these five facts that was fairly probative of knowledgeable participation by Harris I would feel differently. Such facts could have been Harris’ fingerprints on the license plate that had been removed, a verbal denial by him that he knew the robbers, a false statement that the car or the gun was not his, or any such similar testimony. It would not need to be direct evidence, only circumstantial evidence that in or of itself, without relying completely on inference upon inference, could support a direct inference of knowledgeable participation. Failing such test it is my opinion that the evidence does not meet the required standard of persuasion.
Failing to meet such standard, since the five circumstances lack any ingredients to prove that Harris participated with guilty knowledge, they form a wholly inadequate base upon which to rest a *96conviction for aiding and abetting.7 The Government admits as much in its brief, i. e., that when each of these five circumstances is considered separately (fragmented), they are inconclusive of guilt, but they argue that when taken as a whole they are adequate to support the conviction. We agree that the evidence must be considered as a whole. There might be something to the Government’s point of cumulating the evidence if the five points were weak evidence of participation with guilty knowledge, but they do not go that far. They just have no ingredient in them which tends to fairly prove knowledgeable participation, and I disagree with the Government’s thesis that this fatal omission is cured by the fact that it occurs five times. Five times nothing produces nothing. Under such circumstances the government’s argument gets down to contending that the number of passive circumstances involved warrants a conclusion of guilt, i. e., that it can rely upon the numerical probabilities to get over the reasonable doubt hurdle. However, to so base a guilty verdict on numerical probabilities is to base it impermissibly on pure chance. What should be produced from the circumstances is some probability reasonably and fairly based in some fact from which a fair inference of knowledgeable participation can be adduced. As I view the record the factual circumstances do not unerringly point to knowledgeable participation by Harris and a conclusion that they do can be reached only by impermissible speculation and conjecture. Under such circumstances it is my opinion that it would be impossible for a reasonable mind to conclude guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. So, I would reverse and remand with directions to enter a judgment of acquittal on the motion of the defendant.

. See p. 94, infra, as to time clock being 5 minutes slow.

. The actual testimony was as follows:
Q Would anyone other than the employees at Merkle Press, would they have any reason to know about the route by which the payroll is met?
A No.
Mr. Docter: Your Honor please, I think he should specify whether he knows. He says no. What is his basis?
The Court: Do you object to the question?
Mr. Docter: Yes, sir.
The Court: In so far as you know. Put your question again.
By Mr. Finkelstein:
Q Mr. Quinlan, to your knowledge, would any other person other than an employee of Merkle Press know of the means used by which the payroll is met every Friday at Merkle Press?
In which department was Thomas Harris employed?
*94A He was employed in the Shipping Department.
The transcript thus does not support the statement in the Government brief that:
No one other than employees of Merkle Press would have reason to know the system used to pay the employees or the routes traveled to deliver the pay to the various departments. (Tr. 105-106). * * *

. Bailey v. United States, 135 U.S.App. D.C. 95, 416 F.2d 1110 (1969) ; and see Scott v. United States, 98 U.S.App.D.C. 105, 232 F.2d 362 (1956) for a case where evidence that accused served as lookout was insufficient to prove aiding and abetting.

. United States v. Peoni, supra, 100 F.2d at 402.

. Nye & Nissen v. United States, 336 U.S. 613, 69 S.Ct. 766, 93 L.Ed. 919 (1949) ; Peterson v. United States, 405 F.2d 102 (8th Cir. 1968) ; White v. United States, 366 F.2d 474 (10th Cir. 1966).

. Cooper v. United States, 94 U.S.App.D.C. 343, 218 F.2d 39 (1954), reversed a stronger case tor aiding and abetting a robbery. There appellant likewise owned the getaway ear and was a friend of one of the robbers. In addition he had asked his cousin in North Carolina to corroborate a false alibi for him. The court held such evidence might raise a question and create suspicion but that is not enough. There is obviously more evidence there than here upon which to base participation with guilty knowledge.

. When the Government was asked at oral argument as to which of the five circumstances had any ingredient that fairly tended to prove participation with guilty knowledge, they pointed only to No. 4. But as a base for anything, the transcript shows that No. 4 is inadequate for such purpose. See pages 93-95, supra.