Court Opinion

ID: 9459996
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:37:20.264668+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:25.580532
License: Public Domain

HEANEY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I respectfully dissent.
A careful reading of the record reveals that the defendant’s counsel did not cross-examine Crosby with respect to whether Crosby had observed other open sales of narcotics in the vicinity of 1208 11th Street. The cross-examina*1323tion was directed solely to the question of whether narcotics sales generally took place in the open and in broad daylight. Had the redirect examination been similarly pointed, the defendant could not be heard to complain. Rather, it was intended to show that twelve to fifteen sales per day of narcotics had been observed in the open in the same neighborhood as defendant’s alleged sale. This testimony was such as to permit the jury to draw the inference that the defendant was a member of a narcotics ring engaged in the open selling of narcotics in the neighborhood. To avoid having this inference drawn by the jury, the defendant would have had to assume the burden of disproving that such sales had in fact been made. This would have been a hopeless task, particularly in view of the fact that the trial court did not require the prosecution either to lay a foundation as to the time of the sales or to identify the participants in the sales.
The prejudicial nature of this testimony is at least as apparent as that condemned by the Supreme Court in Michelson v. United States, 335 U.S. 469, 69 S.Ct. 213, 93 L.Ed. 168 (1948), by this Court in United States v. Crawford, 438 F.2d 441 (8th Cir. 1971), and by the Ninth Circuit in United States v. Conrad, 448 F.2d 271 (9th Cir. 1971). The trial court clearly abused its discretion in receiving it.
In light of Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946), I cannot accept the majority’s view that the error in admitting the evidence was harmless. There, the Supreme Court stated:
“ ‘If, when all is said and done, the conviction is sure that the error did not influence the jury, or had but very slight effect, the verdict and the judgment should stand. . . . But if one cannot say, with fair assurance, after pondering all that happened without stripping the erroneous action from the whole, that the judgment was not substantially swayed by the error, it is impossible to conclude that substantial rights were not affected. . ."
Id. at 764, 66 S.Ct. at 1248.
The majority bolsters its view that the trial judge did not err in allowing the testimony by asserting:
“In this case, there was even more reason to develop the point because the jury might well have concluded a daylight sale was so improbable as to discredit the agents’ testimony.”
The above statement is inconsistent with the majority’s finding of harmless error. Indeed, I read the statement to logically preclude such a finding.
The testimony of Agent Crosby not only created the impression that the defendant was a member of a narcotics ring operating openly in the neighborhood of 11th and University, but also tended to weaken his credibility and that of his alibi witnesses who frequented the same neighborhood. This was fatal, as the defendant’s only chance of gaining an acquittal was to convince the jury that he and his witnesses were telling the truth.