Court Opinion

ID: 9453850
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 18:25:50.975499+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:33:49.833035
License: Public Domain

TAMM, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I dissent from only that section of the majority opinion which reverses the conviction of Martin McHale, id est, case number 20,599 in this court. The reversal is predicated upon the conclusion that the Government improperly presented evidence concerning events which took place after the dates named in the six count indictment charging eight persons with use of the mails in a scheme to defraud. The indictment, returned on June 8, 1965, enumerated use of the mails in furtherance of the scheme to defraud on September 23, 1961 (count one), April 6, 1962 (count two), June 20,1962 (count three), July 30, 1962 (count four), January 31, 1963 (count five), and February 4, 1963 (count six). Martin McHale was found guilty of the charges contained in counts three, four, five and six of the indictment.
Martin McHale entered the employment of the involved debt consolidating firms in November, 1961 and served in various positions until, as manager at the Baltimore office, his employment terminated in May, 1963. Very briefly summarized, the Government’s evidence established that as branch manager of the Baltimore office Martin McHale con*760tinued the established policy of deducting, despite contrary representations to the customers, the entire “installation charge” from the first payments made by customers, and before any remittances were submitted to creditors (Tr. 303-04); he instructed the manager of the Wilmington office to follow the same practice. (Tr. 1115-18.) The evidence established Martin McHale’s knowledge that creditors of customers were not being promptly paid, and that customer payments were frequently being used for purposes other than the decreasing of the bills owed their creditors by the paying customers; and that in April 1963 he wrote a letter to an inquiring customer, falsely representing that certain creditors, about whom the customer inquired, had been paid, when in fact the customer’s “account card” disclosed that those creditors had not been paid. (Tr. 1642-45.) The record disclosed that Martin McHale failed to refund monies owing to customers upon the termination or cancellation of the customers’ accounts (Tr. 1650-51, 1700, 1760-61), and that he on occasion transferred amounts owing to customers on a refundable basis to the “refund sheet” account which account was used to pay operating expenses of the company. (Tr. 305-13, 320-23, 338, 452, 1471-73, 1478-80.)
The evidence at trial convincingly established a scheme to defraud wherein the company, contrary to its representations, fraudulently converted to its own use funds belonging to depositors and misrepresented the method and time of deduction of its own charges, as well as the nature of the services it would, or did, perform for its fee. The use of the mails in furtherance of the scheme was clearly established by the evidence. Martin McHale was convicted on four counts of the indictment relating to mailings taking place during the period of his employment.
Despite this record the majority set aside the conviction of Martin McHale because the trial judge admitted in evidence at the Government’s request, additional testimony establishing a continuation of the same types of conduct, after the date of the last mailing identified, in the indictment, id est, February 4, 1963. This evidence related to conduct occurring on February 11-16, March 14, March 25, April 15, and May 31, 1963. The majority rejects this testimony of events subsequent to the last count letter despite strong academic views and judicial opinions which I believe make this testimony properly admissible against this appellant.
Professor Wigmore in discussing the distinctions existing between evidence addressed to proof of knowledge and that allowable to prove intent points out that “in evidencing intent, it is repetition of instances that tends to negative innocence in particular instances, and thus it is immaterial whether the instances are found occurring before or after the act charged. * * * The length of time over which we may range in search of evidential instances is obviously determinable by no fixed rule. The precedents illustrate various lengths of time. The discretion of the trial Court should here control.” 2 J. Wigmoee, Evidence § 316 (3d ed. 1940). See also id. at § 352, n. 2.
Case law was existent in 1840 to establish that “wherever the intent or guilty knowledge of a party is a material ingredient in the issue of a case, these collateral facts, tending to establish such intent * * * are proper evidence.” Bottomley v. United States, 3 F.Cas.No. 1,688, pp. 968, 972 (C.C.D.Mass.1840). Circuit Justice Story in making this statement was ruling upon and approving the admissibility of evidence relating to transactions similar to that charged in a condemnation in rent proceeding which occurred after the transaction named in the information.
This question was again searchingly and broadly discussed by Judge Taft in 1896, in Penn. Mut. Life Ins. Co. v. Mechanics’ Savings Bank & Trust Co., 72 F. 413, 38 L.R.A. 33 (6th Cir. 1896). “It is a well-established rule of evidence that, where the issue is the fraud or innocence of one in doing an act having the *761effect to mislead another, it is relevant to show other similar acts of the same person having the same effect to mislead, at or about the same time, or connected with the same general subject-matter. The legal relevancy of such evidence is based on logical principles. It certainly diminishes the possibility that an innocent mistake was made in an untrue and misleading statement, to show similar but different misleading statements of the same person about the same matter, because it is less probable that one would make innocent mistakes of a false and misleading character in repeated instances than in one instance.” 72 F. at 422. Reaching our specific issue herein, the fact that the evidence admitted included instances which occurred subsequent to the charged false statements, and were allegedly too remote in time as to the charged instance since they might relate to a fraudulent intent formed after an innocent mistake, Judge Taft continued:
This possibility, of course, affects the probative force of these subsequent instances to show fraud, but we do not think it makes them inadmissible. . In Wood v. U. S., 16 Pet. 342, the question was whether there had been fraud in invoicing importations under the customs revenue law. It was objected that, while similar undervaluations in other importations prior to the one in issue might be admissible, still it was error to admit such undervaluations in later importations. To this, Mr. Justice Story, speaking for the court said: ‘The other objection has as little foundation, for fraud in the first importation may be as fairly deducible from other subsequent fraudulent importations by the same party as fraud would be in the last importation from prior fraudulent importations. In each case the quo animo is in question, and the presumption may equally arise and equally prevail.’
72 F. at 423.
In a more modern context the Ninth Circuit considered this question in Waller v. United States, 177 F.2d 171 (9th Cir. 1949).
Under familiar principles, relevant evidence of other offenses or acts, if similar and not too remote, may be admissible on the issue of fraudulent intent if such intent is a constituent and disputed element of the crime with which the accused is charged. Tedeseo v. United States, 9 Cir., 1941, 118 F.2d 737; Lawrence v. United States, 9 Cir., 1947, 162 F.2d 156; Ny & Nis-sen v. United States, 9 Cir., 1948, 168 F.2d 846; McCoy v. United States, 9 Cir., 1948, 169 F.2d 776, certiorari denied 335 U.S. 898, 69 S.Ct. 298 [93 L.Ed. 433].
It is pointed out that the transaction of which the admitted contract is evidence occurred subsequent in time to the acts which base the present charge, and the claim is made that this time relation renders the evidence in question irrelevant and inadmissible, citing Witters v. United States, 1939, 70 App.D.C. 316, 106 F.2d 837, 125 A.L.R. 1031. Where other acts are offered as evidentiary of intent under the rule heretofore mentioned, it matters not whether they are subsequent or prior in time.
177 F.2d at 175-176. See also Green v. United States, 176 F.2d 541 (1st Cir. 1949), quoting with approval our opinion in Bracey v. United States, 79 U.S.App.D.C. 23, 142 F.2d 85, cert. denied, 322 U.S. 762, 64 S.Ct. 1274, 88 L.Ed. 1589 (1944).
If there is any suggestion that the challenged evidence was too remote in time, I point out that it spanned a period somewhat less than four months from the last date enumerated in the indictment. Compare this period with the time element involved in United States v. Blount, 229 F.2d 669 (2d Cir. 1956) in which evidence of a similar occurrence happening two years after the factual situation named in the indictment was held not to be too remote in time as to be admissible “for its probative effect on the issue of defendant’s intent * * *.” 229 F.2d at 672. See also United States *762v. Feldman, 136 F.2d 394 (2d Cir. 1943), aff’d, 322 U.S. 487, 64 S.Ct. 1082, 88 L.Ed. 1408 (1944), in which evidence relating to similar activities and occurring from 13 to 20 months subsequent to the charged violations was held to be admissible on the issue of intent.
I find the record before us ample to sustain Martin McHale’s conviction. I conclude that the evidence against him was “great” to utilize the term used in the majority opinion, that the evidence of subsequent misconduct was completely relevant, and that the volume of that evidence, in the light of all of the evidence offered by the Government, was not excessive. I would affirm this conviction.