Court Opinion

ID: 9463507
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:09:12.195236+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:09.397393
License: Public Domain

*922WIDENER, Circuit Judge (dissenting):
I respectfully dissent, but not without some trepidation for fear of being accused of placing myself other than on the side of the angels and Voltaire as quoted in footnote 3. But if that footnote implies, as I fear it may, that the holding of the district court even remotely suggests that admission to the bar may be dependent upon conformity of opinion to that held by a majority of that court, I specifically disassociate myself from any such implication. I find no such suggestion in the district court’s majority, concurring, or dissenting opinions.
I need mention only one aspect of the majority opinion to illustrate my point, and express no opinion on its treatment of Braverman’s interpretation of Schneider-man. As quoted, Braverman stated at one place “but I never came across where force and violence, as a way of achieving change, was ever heard.” (Emphasis added by the majority).
By an elliptical interpretation of the sentence, the majority has taken it, especially . “heard,” and twisted both the sentence and the word out of permissible ordinary meanings which the district court was perfectly justified in giving them. A simple illustration will illustrate the error of the majority’s way. Suppose a cousin were in Afghanistan, and you were asked “Have you heard from her lately?” A perfectly ordinary meaning would be “Has she written?,” but the question might just as well mean “Has she called by telephone, or have you seen anyone from Afghanistan who has knowledge of her?” The majority here, with its construction of the word “heard,” would say that it would be perfectly truthful to answer that you had not heard from her, although she might have written, because oral communication had not been had. The district judges heard this communication orally from Braverman. I think they were entitled to give the sentence the ordinary everyday meaning which they did.
It is difficult to argue with the scholarly dissertation on Communist doctrine, theory, and dogma in the opinion of the majority. Yet I think such has no place in this opinion to serve as corroboration of Braverman.
The question here is whether Braverman was playing free and loose with the court in his application for reinstatement. The court found as a fact that he was, which may only have reference to Braverman’s intent as he made and pursued his application for reinstatement to the bar. It is not new learning that intent is a matter of fact. United States v. Quincy, 31 U.S. (6 Pet.) 445, 8 L.Ed. 458 (Jan. term 1832). And the last several generations of lawyers have been at home with the teaching that “the state of a man’s mind is as much a fact as the state of his digestion.” Lord Justice Bowen in Edgington v. Fitzmaurice, 29 Ch.D. 459, 483 (1882). Additionally, I note that even as this dissent is being written, we have reversed a district judge in a criminal case for taking away from a jury, the triers of fact, the question of intent. United States v. Arthur, 544 F.2d 730 (4th Cir. 1976).
Especially since the examination was ore ten us, the credibility of witnesses and the weight of théir evidence is a matter peculiarly within the province of the judges who heard the evidence. Their report has been reinforced by a majority of all the judges on the district court. I do not think the finding that Braverman played free and loose with the court, which is bound to refer to his state of mind, is clearly erroneous. F.R.C.P. 52(a). However much either I or the majority may disagree with the triers of fact, unless they are clearly erroneous, we may not reverse. If the judgment of the district court is to be overturned in this case, it must be done on the theory that the findings are clearly erroneous, which I think may not be predicated, as it is, on giving face value to Communist doctrine, theory, dogma, and paraphernalia, which the whole world knows is observed or not observed by any doctrinaire Communist to achieve the result sought at any given moment. I think the majority opinion closes its eyes to reality in this respect. We are not required “to pretend not to know as judges what we know as men.” Bell, J., in *923Johnson v. Branch, 364 F.2d 177, 182 (4th Cir. 1966).
Accordingly, I would affirm the judgment of the district court for the reasons I have stated and for the first two reasons in Judge Miller’s concurring opinion, 399 F.Supp. 801, 808 (D.Md.1975).