Court Opinion

ID: 9447116
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 22:26:10.164698+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:54.349118
License: Public Domain

HUTCHESON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) .
It is my view that, in consolidating for trial, over the objection of the defendants, the separate indictment charging the appellant Resmondo with a violation of Title 18 U.S.C.A. § 2421, with respect to one Betty Tyson, with the separate indictment charging the appellant Griffin with the violation of the same section, with respect to one Hazel Justice, the court committed prejudicial error.
In addition, in view of the separate and specific provisions of See. 2421 and 2422, carefully defining the offenses *805charged therein,1 I am of the opinion that, since the indictment charged the defendants only with the offense of transporting charged in Par. 1 of Sec. 2421 and the proof not only failed to prove but completely negatived the charge of transportation, there was a fatal variance between indictment and proof. Cf. Mc-Tyre v. United States, 5 Cir., 213 F.2d 65, and Grimsley v. United States, 5 Cir., 50 F.2d 509.
In support of the first view, it is only necessary to read the plain and simple words of Rule 13 and Rule 8(b) F.R.Cr. P., as they are set out in the majority opinion, to see that the joinder was not within the language of the rule and that, unless the basic rights of the defendants asserted by timely motion may be subordinated to the supposed superior convenience of the government or the court, the judgments appealed from may not stand.
With deference, the court announces a rule as to joinder which certainly is not stated in the statute and which I do not find stated in the controlling cases. Pointer v. United States, 151 U.S. 396, 14 S.Ct. 410, 38 L.Ed. 208; McElroy v. United States, 164 U.S. 76, 17 S.Ct. 31, 41 L.Ed. 355. If the decision is to be supported, therefore, it must be upon the theory announced by the majority, that the procedural rights conferred upon defendants by Rule 8 can be abrogated or denied upon the theory of an overriding public interest of court and prosecutor in the shortening and expedition of trials, a theory, in short, similar to that put forward by one of the characters in Sir Walter Scott’s Ivanhoe, “Aye, the trial moves on apace when the guilt of the defendant is determined beforehand.” Still with deference, the fact that this theory, sometimes put forward under the authority of Rule 52(a) “Harmless Error”, does not apply where the substantial rights of a defendant are sought to be brushed aside in the name of the public interest has been specifically repudiated in case after case. Among them may be cited Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 1246, 90 L.Ed. 1557, a leading case on the subject. There the Supreme Court, reversing the *806decision of the Circuit Court of Appeals that, while there was error in joining in one count against a defendant several separate conspiracies, such joinder must be regarded as harmless error, said, quoting from the House Report on the Harmless Error Statute, the predecessor of the rule:
“If the error is of such a character that its natural effect is to prejudice a litigant’s substantial rights, the burden of sustaining a verdict will, notwithstanding this legislation rest upon the one who claims under it.”
The court then went on to say:
“Moreover, lawyers know, if others do not, that what may seem technical may embody a great tradition of justice. * * *”
and further:
“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. The inquiry cannot be merely whether there was enough to support the result, apart from the phase affected by the error. It is rather, even so, whether the error itself had substantial influence. If so, or if one is left in grave doubt, the conviction cannot stand.”
A district court case, in which the judge correctly applied the rule to situations of the kind involved here is United States v. Harvick, D.C., 153 F.Supp. 696.
I agree, of course, with the majority that the story the evidence tells is sordid and the character it establishes for the two defendants is one of depravity and debauchery on a par with their so-called victims, both professional prostitutes, but this in no manner changes the law which requires a defendant to be tried and convicted, not of general baseness but of the offense for which he is indicted.
In my opinion the judgment should be reversed and the cause remanded with directions to set aside the joinder order.
Rehearing denied: HUTCHESON, Circuit Judge, dissenting.

. Sec. 2421 “Transportation generally.
“Whoever knowingly transports in interstate or foreign commerce, or in the District of Columbia or in any Territory or Possession of the United States, any woman or girl for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose, or with the intent and purpose to induce, entice, or compel such woman or girl to become a prostitute or to give herself up to debauchery, or to engage in any other immoral practice; or
“Whoever knowingly procures or obtains any ticket or tickets, or any form of transportation or evidence of the right thereto, to bo used by any woman or girl in interstate or foreign commerce, or in the District of Columbia of any Territory or Possession of the United States, in going to any place for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose, or with the intent or purpose on the part of such person to induce, entice, or compel her to give herself up to the practice of prostitution, or to give herself up to debauchery, or any other immoral practice, whereby any such woman or girl shall be transported in interstate or foreign commerce, or in the District of Columbia or any Territory or Possession of the United States—
“Shall be fined not more than $5000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. June 25, 1948, c. 045, 02 Stat. 812, amended May 24, 1949, c. 139, § 47, 63 Stat. 96.”
Sec. 2422. “Coercion or enticement of female.
“Whoever knowingly persuades, induces, entices, or coerces any woman or girl to go from one place to another in interstate or foreign commerce, or in the District of Columbia or in any Territory or Possession of the United States, for the purpose of prostitution or debauchery, or for any other immoral purpose or with the intent and purpose on the part of such person that such woman or girl shall engage in the practice of prostitution or debauchery, or any other immoral practice, whether with or without her consent, and thereby knowingly causes such woman or girl to go and to bo carried or transported as a passenger upon the line or route of any common carrier or carriers in interstate or foreign commerce, or in the District of Columbia or in any Territory or Possession of the United States, shall be fined not more than $5000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. Juno 25,1948, c. 645, 62 Stat. 812.”