Court Opinion

ID: 9442618
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 18:53:35.140802+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:29:09.574400
License: Public Domain

*912CLARK, Circuit Judge
(concurring)..
' In 'concurring, I think it desirable to comment upon 18 U.S.C.A. § 2, for that involves a ■ point of potentially wider 'significance thán this case alone. As I read the opinion it would quite erase the new and added subd. (b) of that statute and would do so against a rather clearer statem'ent of purpose in the Reviser’s notes' than is usual. My experience with’these code revisions to date has convinced me that judges are confusing the problems involved immeasurably by trying to read the revisions as not making extensive changes when, as has become increasingly obvious, there' are many substantial changes' contemplated or made.
Here, particularly in the light of the evidence as to Stancin’s connection with the crime in its 'early stages, I cannot believe that the judge committed any error in merely reading or repeating the words of the statute. I hardly imagine a trial judge will wish to take it upon himself to write a whole subdivision out of a statute; and, as an appellate judge, I do not want to do the same except where, after the fullest of consideration, it appears quite necessary. Such does not seem the case here. I should add that while I am not clear as to precisely what the objection is, I do not see anything in subd. (b), as explained by the Reviser, which would take away the need of a showing of the necessary criminal intent.