Court Opinion

ID: 9463233
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:01:15.330364+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:59.632783
License: Public Domain

MANSFIELD, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I must respectfully dissent for the reason that in my view Judge Bryan did not abuse his discretion in admitting proof that when Robinson was arrested he had on his person a .38 caliber hand gun, the same caliber as the gun which was shown by other proof to have been possessed by Robinson when he participated in the bank robbery. As the majority concedes, this evidence was clearly relevant. In my view it represented strong corroboratory proof of Robinson’s participation in the robbery, clearly outweighing any prejudice.
The significance of Robinson’s post-arrest possession of a .38 caliber revolver becomes apparent when one examines the other evidence in the case, which reveals both his participation in the bank robbery and his use of a .38 caliber revolver during the robbery. His participation was shown by the direct testimony of his co-participant Simon, by bank photos showing Robinson scooping money into a paper bag during the robbery,1 and by evidence that on the day before the robbery Robinson had offered to obtain a get-away car. The stolen getaway car used in the robbery, and later found abandoned, was a 1974 Pontiac owned by a friend of Robinson named Otis Brown. In addition, the evidence showed that on the day of the robbery Robinson failed to show up for work as a laboratory technician at the Gouverneur Hospital, two *622blocks away from the bank which was robbed, that in order to allay any suspicions on the part of bank employees the robbers wore white jackets of the type worn by employees of that hospital who frequented the bank, and that after the robbery Robinson’s fingerprint was found in the abandoned get-away car.
There also was ample proof that Robinson used a .38 caliber revolver during the bank robbery. Simon testified that on the night before the robbery the four participants (Simon, Robinson, “Karim,” and Garris) assembled four guns to be used in the carrying out of the crime: one shotgun, one .32 caliber hand gun, one .38 caliber revolver, and one revolver “that looked like it might have been a .38.” During the course of the robbery Simon used the shotgun, Karim used the .32 caliber revolver, which he accidentally discharged during the robbery (wounding a teller), and Garris held a gun on a teller, while Robinson emptied the cash drawers. Immediately after the robbery Simon testified that Robinson handed over his gun to Garris in the back seat of the get-away car. From this evidence it was logical for the jury to infer that during the robbery Robinson had in his possession a .38 caliber hand gun.
In light of the independent evidence of Robinson’s participation in the robbery and possession of a .38 caliber hand gun, his possession of a .38 caliber hand gun on the day of his arrest has considerable probative significance. In determining the probative value to be attached to this type of circumstantial evidence we are, of course, always dealing with probabilities. While hand guns may be all too plentiful in our society, the majority would imply that they are as common as subway tokens. In fact, the vast majority of people do not possess a hand gun, much less one of .38 caliber. To find such a gun in the possession of the very person against whom there is independent proof that he used a .38 caliber hand gun in the bank robbery is sufficiently coincidental to be extraordinary. I cannot agree with the majority that this evidence “established only a very weak inference that appellant was one of the bank robbers.” On the contrary, while there is always the outside possibility that the gun might have been acquired by him after the robbery, the strong probability is that, absent any evidence that it came from some intervening source, the gun had been in his possession and used by him in the bank robbery. In United States v. Ravich, 421 F.2d 1196, 1204 (2d Cir. 1970), which the majority tries mightily but in my view without success to distinguish, Judge Friendly stated the guiding principle:
“Nevertheless, a jury could infer from the possession of a large number of guns at the date of arrest that at least some of them had been possessed for a substantial period of time, and therefore that the defendants had possessed guns on and before the date of the robbery. See United States v. Consolidated Laundries Corp., 291 F.2d 563, 569 (2 Cir. 1961), and 2 Wigmore, Evidence § 437(1) (3d ed. 1940). Direct evidence of such possession would have been relevant to establish opportunity or preparation to commit the crime charged, and thus would have tended to prove the identity of the robbers, the only real issue in this trial. See Morton v. United States, 87 U.S.App.D.C. 135, 183 F.2d 844 (1950); United States v. Montalvo, 271 F.2d 922, 927 (2 Cir. 1959), cert. denied, 361 U.S. 961, 80 S.Ct. 589, 4 L.Ed.2d 543 (1960). Circumstantial evidence of such possession was therefore also relevant.” [Footnote omitted].
Since Robinson’s post-robbery possession of a .38 caliber hand gun corroborated the independent evidence of his possession of such a gun during the robbery itself, the experienced trial judge acted well within his discretion in concluding that its probative value outweighed any improper prejudicial effect. As the majority must recognize, the balance of probative value versus prejudicial effect is a matter best left to the wide discretion of the trial judge who, because he personally views the witnesses and the jury, is in a much better position to judge the effect of testimony as it unrolls than we are, relying only on a cold, printed *623record.2 United States v. Leonard, 524 F.2d 1076, 1092 (2d Cir. 1975). In United States v. Ravich, supra, the possible prejudice from introduction of the guns into evidence, which had “the undoubted effect on the jury of seeing all this hardware on the table,” 421 F.2d at 1204-05, was far greater than in the present case, where none of the guns was introduced. Yet Judge Friendly, noting that the trial judge’s “determination will rarely be disturbed on appeal” found no abuse there.
Similarly I would find no abuse of discretion on the part of Judge Bryan in the present case. It denigrates the common sense of the average jury to suggest that simply because of a defendant’s later possession of a hand gun a jury would find him guilty of an earlier bank robbery. A jury is quite capable of distinguishing between the crime of bank robbery and that of possible violation of New York’s Sullivan Law. When that jury is then clearly, effectively, and repeatedly instructed by the trial judge 3 that the evidence of his later possession of the gun is admitted “for a very limited purpose . . . , the issue of defendant’s identity as one of the robbers,” and told by the court that it may not on the basis of this evidence “draw any conclusions or inferences or engage in any speculations as to the defendant’s character or reputation,” the jury is not going to convict the defendant of robbery merely because he may have possessed a hand gun ten weeks after the robbery was committed. Jurors hardly expect evidence in a bank robbery case to be limited to the discreet and delicate niceties that might characterize a highly technical civil suit.
Undoubtedly the able trial judge carefully weighed these and other factors in his mind before admitting the evidence. Indeed, the conscientious exercise of his discretion is confirmed by the fact that he waited until all of the independent evidence of Robinson’s participation in the robbery had been introduced (including the photographs showing Robinson engaged in the act) before permitting proof of his later possession of the gun. Judge Bryan’s decision was well within his discretion.
Walker v. United States, 490 F.2d 683 (8th Cir. 1974), so heavily relied upon by the majority, is not only distinguishable but, if anything, supports the introduction of Robinson’s later possession of the .38 caliber gun. There the admission of the defendant’s later possession of a revolver was held error because it was “demonstrably unconnected with the crime,” 490 F.2d 683, since the bank manager and teller, witnesses called by the government, testified that the pistol “was definitely not the weapon used in the robbery” and they “detailed the difference between the chrome-plated revolver found on Walker and the one used in the robbery which he said ‘had a flat black or bluing on it like a Rossi or imported Italian.’ ” Said the court:
“This is not at all the classic case of admitting into evidence a ‘similar’ weapon which was found in the possession of a defendant but which could not be positively identified as that used in a crime. Such evidence has been regularly admitted as relevant. E. g., Banning v. United States, 130 F.2d 330, 335 (6th Cir. 1942); United States v. Cunningham, 423 F.2d 1269, 1276 (4th Cir. 1970). Here there was positive evidence that the pistol admitted was not similar to the one used in the crime. Thus the traditional justifica*624tion for the admission of such a weapon is cut away and the evidence must be seen as irrelevant since it was not probative of the proposition that the accused committed the crime charged.” (490 F.2d at 684)
In contrast to the revolver introduced in Walker, the revolver carried by Robinson upon arrest was not only “similar” to that used in the robbery — it was of the same caliber. Accordingly it was entitled to substantial probative value.
Since the majority does not reach the issue of whether the trial judge’s non-disclosure of the juror’s note, followed by his giving of a second Allen -type charge, amounted to reversible error, only a brief discussion becomes necessary. The action taken by the trial judge under the circumstances was neither improper nor an abuse of his discretion. As the majority suggests, disclosure to counsel of the juror’s name and how the jury stood would have been inappropriate, possibly leading to undue pressure upon the lone dissenting juror. Disclosure of the balance of the note would hardly have afforded Robinson any tactical or other advantage. He already had enough information to ask for a repetition of parts of the judge’s charge, e.g., the instruction on reasonable doubt, but he chose not to do so and not to ask for the unsealing of the note. The extremely short Allen charge was so mild as to border on the innocuous and was clearly permissible under the well-settled law of this Circuit. See, e.g., United States v. Lee, 509 F.2d 645, 646 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 422 U.S. 1044, 95 S.Ct. 2645, 45 L.Ed.2d 696 (1975).
Finding no merit in the appeal, I would affirm.

. On the basis of my own close examination of the photographs introduced into evidence, including comparison of conceded photos of Robinson (GX 17) with some of those taken by the bank surveillance camera of one of the persons engaged in the robbery (GX 106A-109A), I am persuaded (as apparently was the jury) by the similarity in facial features, including the shape and contours of the mouth, chin, nose, eyebrows, forehead, mustache, and hairline, that they depict one and the same person, as Simon testified at trial. In addition, of course, the jury was able at trial to see Robinson in person for comparison with the bank photos, which we have not done.

. Under Federal Rule of Evidence, 403, exclusion of relevant evidence is a matter for the discretion of the trial judge. In the exercise of this discretion, Judge Weinstein has suggested that, “Judges may differ in their assessment of probative value because, like jurors, they may disagree with respect to the evidential hypothesis and, consequently, its significance to the case. Generally, the better approach on the question of admissibility is to view both probative force and prejudice most favorably towards the proponent, that is to say, to give the evidence its maximum reasonable probative force and its minimum reasonable prejudicial value.” Weinstein’s Evidence H 403[03] (1975).

. The Advisory Committee’s Note to Rule 403 states that, “in reaching a decision whether to exclude on the grounds of unfair prejudice, consideration should be given to the probable effectiveness or lack of effectiveness of a limiting instruction.”