Court Opinion

ID: 9446346
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:52:41.678639+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:37.502270
License: Public Domain

POPE, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
I agree with all that is said in the court’s opinion. I wish to add further that in my view it is hardly necessary to deal with one of the problems ably discussed in Judge ORR’s opinion. It is there said, “Oral, unsworn statements without further corroborating evidence have always been held insufficient.” With that statement I thoroughly agree; but I wish to add that in my view the oral unsworn statements referred to in the foregoing opinion are not only wholly insufficient but under the issues in this case they were irrelevant and immaterial.
For instance, Agent Gunn testified that on the evening of November 3, 1956, he interviewed appellant at his office and that she told him that immediately after she arrived with her husband in Seattle in June, 1952, the husband made arrangements with various bellhops for her to work as a prostitute and that she did so work while she and her husband lived at the Stewart Hotel. What influences my special view of this case is the language of the indictment,— Count 2. That count charges her with wilfully and contrary to her oath, stating what she did not believe to be true, to-wit, “did state and subscribe that during the period from September, 1954 to December, 1955, she did not operate as a prostitute when in truth and in fact she did operate as a prostitute” during the stated period.
I think it is plain that even under the present liberal rules relating to criminal pleading there are certain minimum requirements for specifying the charge against the accused. Rule 7(c) of the Rules of Criminal Procedure states: “The indictment or the information shall be a plain, concise and definite written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged.” The offense charged here was concise and it was definite and it was to the effect that she testified that during the period mentioned “she did not operate as a prostitute when in truth and in fact she did operate as a prostitute.” The portions of the defendant’s testimony at her husband’s trial, which are quoted in the court’s opinion, sufficiently disclose that she did testify that she operated as a prostitute. To my mind this means that the single charge contained in Count 2 completely failed of proof.
It should be noted that the indictment does not charge that this defendant testi*630fied that she operated as a prostitute by having sexual intercourse with only one person, whereas in truth and in fact she operated as a prostitute by having intercourse with many persons. There is no charge that she told part of the truth and did not tell all. The indictment is that she testified that she never, in the period mentioned, operated as a prostitute. She did not testify to that effect; and even although her testimony was “hardly ever” it ceYtainly was not “never”.