Court Opinion

ID: 9641090
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 17:22:56.726786+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:34.981600
License: Public Domain

SWAN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
In my opinion the defendant was guilty of perjury in respect to the charge that he “did not know anything about Dan O’Connell’s connection with the Albany Baseball Pool.” This charge was based upon the following testimony.
“Q. You pleaded guilty in November, 1927, to participation in this C. C. & B. M. A. pool in Boston, Mass., didn’t you? A. I don’t recall the date, I plead guilty.
“Q. And Dan O’Connell also plead guilty at the same time? A. Yes, sir.
*282“Q. Do yon know what his connection with the pool was ? A. No, sir.
“Q. Did you ever see him in connection with the operation of it? A. No, sir.
“Q. You don’t know the reason he plead guilty? A. No, sir, not any more than myself.
“Q. Would you say he had no connection with the pool prior to the time he plead guilty? A. Not as far as I was concerned.
“Q. You didn’t know anything about it ? A. No, sir.
“Q. So far as your knowledge goes, Dan O’Connell hadn’t the slightest connection with this pool although he plead guilty in Boston? A. No, sir.”
To my mind it seems clear that “the pool” to which these questions and answers referred was the pool with which the indictment in Boston was concerned. That indictment charged that the defendants conspired in Albany about March 15, 1923, to transport from the state of New York to the state of Massachusetts tickets in a lottery, “to wit, the lottery sometimes known as The Albany Pool and sometimes known as th'e C. C. & B. M. A. Pool,” and that said conspiracy continued until the date of the indictment, March, 1927. One of the overt acts charged was the transportation of lottery tickets in June, 1924. I see no reason to suppose that Otto’s answers above quoted referred only to so much of the conspiracy as took place in 1926. If they did not, his testimony that he did not know about O’Connell’s connection with “the pool” was proved false and perjurious beyond question by the direct testimony of at least two witnesses.
If the conviction were affirmed on this ground, as I think it should be, it would be unnecessary to consider whether cireum- ■ stantial evidence alone may be enough to support a conviction of perjury. The authorities are not in accord on that subject, and I believe the question is still open in this circuit. In my judgment we should adopt the rule that circumstantial evidence may suffice, if sufficiently cogent, without the limitation which the opinion of the majority of the court places upon it. See State v. Storey, 148 Minn. 398, 182 N. W. 613, 15 A. L. R. 629; Gordon v. United States, 5 F.(2d) 943, 945 (C. C. A. 8).