Court Opinion

ID: 9443828
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 19:31:41.832997+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:37.092613
License: Public Domain

MAJOR, Chief Judge
(concurring in part, dissenting in part).
Judge FINNEGAN’S opinion correctly states the contested issues and contains a fair general statement of the facts. The sole testimony connecting appellant with either of the offenses charged is that of Monroe Ellis Hack, a reading of which causes me to wonder how a jury could have utilized it as a basis for conviction. Appellant is not shown to have been connected with the events and matters which took place in Kentucky after the 13th of December, when Monroe Ellis Hack arrived there from Indianapolis. Monroe Ellis Ha.ck testified that shortly after his conversation with appellant, he called two policemen of the City of Indianapolis and a Secret Service Agent to the hotel and informed them that appellant (his brother) had in his possession some $2,000 in counterfeit money. With this information, it is inconceivable that none of the officers was sufficiently interested to go to the premises of appellant, a few blocks away, for the purpose of seizure or investigation. In fact, no officer testified that he or any of them ever received such information or that he was called by Monroe Ellis Hack or had a conversation with him in the Indianapolis hotel as related. Notwithstanding this significant and unexplained failure on the part of the government to offer testimony corroborating Monroe Ellis Hack as to what took place in Indianapolis, I have decided, with some reluctance, that his testimony was sufficient to connect appellant with the conspiracy charged in the second count. In other words, it presented an issue of fact for the jury.
The first count charges that Ada Miller, on the 15th day of December, 1951, passed a counterfeit $20 Federal Reserve note with intent to defraud and that appellant “did procure the commission of said offense by Ada Miller.” A witness testified that Ada Miller passed such a note on the date alleged, which note was identified and offered in evidence. In my judgment, there is not a scintilla of evidence which in any manner, shape or form proves or tends to prove that appellant procured the commission of the offense alleged. Certainly appellant’s possession of counterfeit money on December 12, 1951, as testified to by Monroe Ellis Hack, which was not described or identified, is no proof that appellant procured the passage by Ada Miller three days later of a $20 counterfeit note,, particularly in view of the fact that such note was not identified as having been in the possession of appellant. Procurement, unlike conspiracy, must encompass something other than a state of mind. To me, it requires some affirmative act of coercion, persuasion or inducement directed to the principal offender. There is not even a word of testimony that Ada Miller had knowledge of appellant’s possession of counterfeit money or that they ever had a. conversation relative thereto. As I have said before, the acts 'and events shown to have occurred in Kentucky are irrelevant to the procurement offense. That charge must stand or fall upon the testimony of *729Monroe Ellis Hack and, accepting such testimony at its face value, it falls far short of supporting the charge.
I would, therefore, affirm as to conspiracy and reverse as to procurement.