Court Opinion

ID: 9462168
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:33:33.251318+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:26.357359
License: Public Domain

ORDER DENYING PETITION FOR REHEARING EN BANC
The petition for rehearing en banc in the above case is denied by five of the judges voting in favor of the denial. Three of the judges vote in favor of the rehearing en banc.
LAY, Circuit Judge,
joined by HEANEY, Circuit Judge, would grant the petition for rehearing en banc for the following reasons.
The defendant, Conley, was convicted of one count of sale of heroin on August 2, 1973, under 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Before trial, the district court cautioned the government that only those conversations at which Conley was present could be admitted since a prior conspiracy charge had been dismissed. Within these restrictions, the government in its case in chief offered extensive and completely disjointed testimony regarding events before the alleged sale on August 2, 1973.1
*657The defendant challenges the admission of the testimony on events prior to the August 2, 1973 sale as too remote in time to have any probative value and as evidence of other crimes which is neither relevant nor clear and convincing. In the panel opinion these events are said to be admissible to show intent, knowledge and a “common plan or scheme” or “a course of dealing.” The material was offered at trial on the theory that it tended to show the defendant’s intent.
This evidence should have been excluded. It was offered in the government’s case in chief to show defendant’s intent, when in fact, intent was never an issue at any time in the case. In order to admit “other crime” evidence, it is not enough that intent is an element of the offense and that the defendant has pleaded not guilty. Such evidence should not be permitted for the purpose of proving intent unless the defense in some affirmative manner denies the intentional aspect of the crime. This would be the case when the theory of the defense was entrapment, lack of knowledge, mistake or accident. In this case however, the defendant denied the act of distribution itself. As Judge Ross, speaking for this court, recently stated:
The purpose of evidence bearing on intent is to negate an innocent mental state after the act charged has been established as having been done by the defendant. 2 J. Wigmore, Wigmore on Evidence § 304, at 202 (3d ed. 1940). In the instant case the'defendant was seriously contesting that she had given the heorin [sic] to Arthur, but was willing to stipulate that if she committed the crime, she had the requisite criminal intent. Thus, intent was not seriously in issue, and the plea of not guilty did not make it an issue. See C. McCormick, Law of Evidence § 190, at 452 n. 54 (2d ed. 1972); United States v. Broadway, 477 F.2d 991, 994 (5th Cir. 1973).
United States v. Buckhanon, 505 F.2d 1079, 1083 n. 1 (8th Cir. 1974).
See also United States v. Clemons, 503 F.2d 486, 489 (8th Cir. 1974); United States v. Simon, 453 F.2d 111, 115 (8th Cir. 1971); United States v. Brown, 453 F.2d 101, 107-08 (8th Cir. 1971); United States v. Crawford, 438 F.2d 441, 448 (8th Cir. 1971) (dicta); United States v. Adams, 385 F.2d 548, 551 (2nd Cir. 1967); United States v. Byrd, 352 F.2d 570 (2nd Cir. 1965). While it may not be necessary for the government to wait until the defense has rested to use such evidence, it should not be admitted until cross-examination or some other action by the defense places intent seriously at issue. See United States v. Brown, 453 F.2d 101, 107-08 (8th Cir. 1971).
The panel opinion, however, holds that the evidence was admissible on an additional ground, that is, that the prior incidents tended to show “a common plan or scheme to distribute heroin which emerged in the intervening months as ‘an uninterrupted course of action’.”
*658With the exception of the August 1 transaction, all other evidence suggesting criminal conduct was not in any way related to any common plan or scheme leading up to the sale of August 2. This theory has too often been loosely mentioned with the intent exception, as here, but the two are completely separate. They place different limits on the evidence that can be admitted. Professor Wigmore says that to prove intent, merely similarity of other crimes to the offense charged will suffice. More is required, however, under the “common plan or scheme” exception.
In the former case (of Intent) the attempt is merely to negative the innocent state of mind at the time of the act charged; in the present case the effort is to establish a definite prior design or system which included the doing of the act charged as a part of its consummation. In the former case, the result is to give a complexion to a conceded act, and ends with that; in the present case, the result is to show (by probability) a precedent design which in its turn is to evidence (by probability) the doing of the act designed.
The added element, then, must be, not merely a similarity in the results, but such a concurrence of common features that the various acts are naturally to be explained as caused by a general plan of which they are the individual manifestations.
2 J. Wigmore, Evidence § 304 at 202 (3d ed. 1940) (emphasis added).
Professor McCormick states that other crimes evidence may be admitted to show:
The existence of a larger continuing plan, scheme or conspiracy, of which the present crime on trial is a part. This will be relevant as showing motive and hence the doing of the criminal act, the identity of the actor, and his intention, where any of these is in dispute.
C. McCormick, Evidence § 157 at 328 (1954) (emphasis added).
See also J. Weinstein & M. Berger, Evidence ¶ 404[09] at 404-59 (1975); H. Rothblatt, Handbook of Evidence for Criminal Trials 206-07 (1965). Significant here is the fact that the government dismissed its conspiracy charge and yet was allowed to bootstrap its proof of the August 2 sale by evidence of a conspiracy to sell through other transactions. This reasoning is circuitous to say the least.
This circuit has in recent cases allowed the prosecution to introduce evidence of prior drug transactions in narcotics cases under the common plan or scheme rationale so long as the incidents are closely related in time to the offense charged. See United States v. Buckhanon, 505 F.2d 1079, 1083-84 (8th Cir. 1974) (narcotics); Sears v. United States, 490 F.2d 150, 152—53 (8th Cir. 1974) (bootleg alcohol).
Even under the most liberal interpretation of the rules however, several of the alleged meetings between Conley and Stewart would seem inadmissible. First, the two meetings in early 1972, more than a year and a half before the sale occasioning the trial, are completely detached and remote in time. Further, since all that Conley was said to have done on those occasions was to be present in the same room in which other persons discussed the sale of heroin without taking any part in these transactions, the prejudice outweighs any arguable relevance. Cf. United States v. Kelton, 446 F.2d 669, 671 (8th Cir. 1971). It proves nothing more than that Conley’s associates were not the best of men and that he was possibly guilty of misprision of a felony. Judge Heaney’s statement in United States v. Crawford, 438 F.2d 441 (8th Cir. 1971) seems especially relevant here:
In today’s society, possibly no act is more abhorred than the selling of narcotics. And nothing makes it more difficult for a defendant to receive a fair and unbiased trial than for the jury to think that the defendant or his acquaintances are men of bad character.
*659438 F.2d at 446.
Introduction of the first meeting on May 14, 1973, when Stewart allegedly was invited to a funeral by Conley, should not have been allowed since the only relevance it could have would be to lead the jury to believe that the defendant was implicated in drug-related deaths or murders. This was likely because the last name of the deceased, Melvin Saunders, was the same as that of the addict and drug dealer who first introduced Stewart to Conley, one Walter Saunders. Since narcotics were not discussed on this occasion, it was not relevant to any proper purpose and was prejudicial.
The alleged meeting between Stewart, Guilbeaux and Conley at the Regal Sports Lounge on July 7, 1973 in which Conley was said to have announced that he would open a bar in his daughter’s name so that his interest in it could not be traced, was similarly irrelevant. After the jury’s mind was tainted, the trial court ordered this testimony stricken.
This circuit’s liberality in admitting such highly prejudical proof is unfortunate. Unless the acts are such as would naturally indicate a preexisting design encompassing the precise crime charged, it is more plausible that this evidence shows only a propensity to commit crimes of a similar nature.
The majority acknowledges that the government faced a difficult task in proving its case. This is true in every criminal case; the framers of our Constitution intended it to be so. The requirement that the government prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt was not designed to make the government’s task an easy one. Our forebears recognized the dangers involved when the awesome forces of government are pitted against the meager resources of the individual whose life or liberty is at stake. The best bulwark against those dangers in a criminal trial is procedural fairness. The rule that evidence of other crimes shall not be admissible in the trial of a criminal case is rooted in the due process concerns that a man should not be tried for crimes without notice of the charges, nor should he be forced to defend against a confusing mass of unrelated allegations. The rules of evidence were designed to adhere to those principles, as Judge San-born once eloquently wrote:
Such evidence tends to draw the attention of the jury away from a consideration of the real issues on trial, to fasten it upon other questions, and to lead them unconsciously to render their verdicts in accordance with their views on false issues rather than on the true issues on trial.
“Evidence of this character necessitates the trial of matters collateral to the main issue, is exceedingly prejudicial, is subject to being misused, and should be received, if at all, only in a plain case.”
Paris v. United States, 260 F. 529, 531 (8th Cir. 1919).
Today we glibly make exceptions which engulf the rule, and “other crime” evidence is freely and recklessly used. According to the panel opinion, proof need not even be of crime; now mere suggestions, suspicions, associations and innuendo are permitted.2 The government should be restricted to proof of the crime charged and any events inextricably related to it. Although a defendant has allegedly committed a similar crime at some time long before the date of the offense charged, that fact is generally relevant only to the impermissible purpose of showing his propensity to do wrong. Now we open the door even wider, and allow the government’s proof *660of other crimes even before the defendant places his intent or knowledge in issue.
Criminal procedures which allow attacks on a defendant’s character and past conduct rather than providing proof of the crime charged harm only the innocent and are totally unnecessary to convict the guilty.

. First, Robert Stewart, an informer for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), testified that he had met Conley twice in early 1972, the year before the sale:
1) According to his testimony, Stewart and one Walter Lee Saunders went sometime in January or February, 1972 to the home of Lloyd McIntyre, a/k/a McIntosh. Conley was present and allegedly within his hearing, Saunders arranged to buy one ounce of heroin from McIntyre after going into an adjoining room to test a sample of the product. Conley was never arrested for or charged with participation in this sale.
2) Stewart also testified that in May, 1972, he and Saunders returned to McIntyre’s home, and again, Conley was present. Saunders purchased lh ounce of heroin from McIntyre, and while all waited for the dope to be delivered, Conley discussed new government drug investigation techniques and how to avoid them.
Thereafter, Stewart and Eddie Guilbeaux, the DEA case agent, testified to the following events, in 1973, the year of the sale:
3) March, 1973. Stewart and Guilbeaux met Conley at the Hi-Note Lounge, and Conley asked them why they'had not yet carried through their agreement to buy 1 ounce of heroin from one Billy Thompson. No testimony was offered as to when this purchase agreement was made. The two agreed to conclude the deal with Billy, and Guilbeaux testified over objection that they did later buy the heroin from Billy Thompson.
4) April 3, 1973. Stewart and Guilbeaux met Conley on a street corner where the latter was doing political work for an election that day. They discussed another sale and Conley told them to get the heroin from Thompson. Conley promised to sell them three ounces of really good stuff the following weekend and they agreed to buy it.
*6575) May 14, 1973. Stewart met Conley early one morning at a funeral parking lot and Conley told him that Melvin Saunders (not the person Stewart had worked with in 1972) was to be buried that day. Later that morning, both Stewart and Guilbeaux met Conley at the Pier Lounge to discuss another sale. Conley told them that he could not sell less than 8 ounce quantities and that they should pick up the heroin from Billy Thompson. That same evening Stewart and Guilbeaux met Conley on Eastern Street where Guilbeaux told Conley that some dope Billy Thompson had given him sometime earlier was of poor quality. Conley asked why they had waited so long to tell him since they had seen him “a hundred times since then.”
6) July 7, 1973. Stewart and Conley met at 8:30- A.M. in the Pier Lounge and arranged to meet later that same day at the Regal Sports Lounge. They did meet there later, but did not discuss narcotics. Stewart testified that Conley said he was opening a bar which would be in his daughter’s name, not his own. This was ordered stricken.
7) August 1, 1973. Stewart met Conley at the Regal Sports Lounge to tell him that Guilbeaux wanted to buy an ounce of heroin. Conley said that heroin was available and arranged to meet Guilbeaux the next day at 3:00 P.M.

. The Fifth Circuit relied on prior Eighth Circuit cases for the following rule on other crime evidence:
Our holding is simply that when proof of an assertedly similar offense is tendered to establish necessary intent, the other offense proved must include the essential physical elements of the offense charged, and these physical elements, but not the mental ingredients of the offenses must be clearly shown by competent evidence.
United States v. Broadway, 477 F.2d 991, 995 (5th Cir. 1973).