Court Opinion

ID: 9460961
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:03:21.689116+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:50.503317
License: Public Domain

WIDENER, Circuit Judge
(concurring and dissenting):
While I concur with the majority to a considerable extent, I am respectfully unable to agree that the venue provisions of 18 U.S.C. § 659, as applicable to the offense of carrying or transporting such stolen goods in interstate commerce, are not to be read literally, or that the prosecution’s cross-examination of witness Sauvogeot, by use of a prior statement which he could not remember making, was proper.
Since, as the majority points out, Count Two was an indictment under the “separate offense” provision of § 659, I think it should have been tried under the venue provisions of the very statute which created the crime. The venue provisions of the statute creating the crime are clear, the words used being “shall be deemed to have been committed.” I am further of opinion that this is an express exception to 18 U.S.C. § 3237. I am unable to see how Congress may create an exception unless to act as it has here.
I am of opinion the district court erred in allowing, the iding of the statement of the witness Sauvogeot to him in the presence of the jury, and then instructing the jury to disregard the questions. Douglas v. Alabama, 380 U.S. 415, 85 S.Ct. 1074, 13 L.Ed.2d 934 (1965); Roberts v. Russell, 392 U.S. 293, 88 S.Ct. 1921, 20 L.Ed.2d 1100 (1968); Bruton v. United States, 391 U.S. 123, 88 S.Ct. 1620, 20 L.Ed.2d 476 (1968).
I share the doubts of the majority as to the admissibility of the testimony of Bruno concerning other crimes of ’the accused, and would go further. I think the evidence inadmissible under Lovely v. United States, 169 F.2d 386 (4th Cir. 1948).