Court Opinion

ID: 9473859
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:41:22.647193+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:46.093265
License: Public Domain

McMILLIAN, Circuit Judge,
concurring.
I concur in the decision to reverse and remand for new trial appellant’s conviction for conspiracy to restrain trade in violation of the Sherman Act (count 1) by submitting rigged bids for certain state highway construction projects. I agree that the instruction describing the types of conduct considered unreasonable per se under the Sherman Act contained a conclusive presumption of an effect on interstate commerce which improperly removed that element of the offense from the consideration of the jury. See Part I supra. I also concur in the analysis in Parts II (government nondisclosure of exculpatory material and statements of the defendant), III (variance), V (instructions and other discovery and evidentiary matters), and VI (prosecutorial misconduct).
With respect to Part IV, I acknowledge that the analysis therein of the anticipatory introduction of APT’s guilty plea is consistent with the position set forth for this Circuit in United States v. Wiesle, 542 F.2d 61, 62 (8th Cir.1976). I write separately only to restate my belief that the better rule is to not “allow the government to introduce evidence as part of its case-in-chief that a codefendant had pleaded guilty to the same or similar offense with which the defendant is charged.” United States v. Hutchings, 751 F.2d 230, 239 (8th Cir.1984) (McMillian, J., specially concurring).
Finally, I note that although the conspiracy to restrain trade count, for which conviction the district court had imposed a substantial fine in the amount of $800,000, has been reversed and remanded for new trial, the court has today affirmed appellant’s conviction for three counts of mail fraud in connection with the state highway construction bid-rigging scheme. The district court imposed a fine of $1,000 on each of the mail fraud counts. This is the maximum fine that the district court could have imposed for the offense of mail fraud. See 18 U.S.C. § 1341. Mail fraud may also be punished by imprisonment for not more than five years. It is, of course, impossible to imprison the corporation itself; it would not, however, be impossible to imprison, following investigation, indictment, trial, and conviction, those corporate officers or employees who acted unlawfully on behalf of the corporation. We have often observed that a corporation cannot take ac*1305tion itself but must act through persons. In my view, it is time to reexamine the prosecution and punishment of corporate crime and to focus upon not only the wrongdoing of the corporate entity but also upon that of its human actors.