Court Opinion

ID: 9651396
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:18:28.49422+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:33.503458
License: Public Domain

SIBLEY, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
My dissent rests upon the Act of February 26, 1919, 28 USCA § 391, providing: “On the hearing of any appeal * * * in any ease, civil or criminal, the court shall give judgment after an examination of the entire record before the court, without regard to technical errors, defects, or exceptions which do not affect the substantial rights of the parties.” This means that no new trial is to be. granted for an abstract error which the whole record shows did no practical harm. The same words were used in this same meaning by the court in Iron-Silver Co. v. Mike & Starr Co., 143 U. S., at page 402, 12 S. Ct. 543, 36 L. Ed. 201. This is a highly remedial •statute touching a valid complaint against the administration of justice, and ought to be fully effectuated. As applied to a ruling on a demurrer to an indictment which is followed by a trial, it is not to be confused with the old law in 18 USCA § 556, that: “No indictment * * * shall be deemed insufficient * * * by reason of any defect or imperfection in matter of form only, which shall not tend to the prejudice of the defendant.” This law applies to the trial judge, and is still unchanged. It covers only defects of form, and declares that disregard of such defects as are mentioned in it is not error. The new law speaks not to the trial judge, but to the reviewing court, and, assuming that the. trial jud^e has committed error, it directs the reviewing court not to punish it by a new trial if it turns out in the light of the whole record to be an abstract error, and without practical prejudice to the defendant. The decisions under the old law as to what it takes to make a good indictment, and what is matter of form and what of substance, are still binding on the trial judge in his rulings on *511demurrer, but have little to do with the new law in its application by a reviewing court. The new law was passed for the purpose of working a change there. I agree that the indictment here concerned was bad in matter of substance, and that it was error to overrule the general demurrer, but I think it clear that the error is an abstract or technical one, and did the defendant no harm. There are two troubles with the indictment. First, it alleges that the defendant well knew that the car was stolen when he received and sold it, without alleging directly that it was in fact stolen. The statute itself has the same fault, but no one doubts that it applies only to a ear really stolen. Legislation may proceed by implication, but good pleading cannot. Nevertheless, an allegation that one knew a thing to be stolen has been held on appeal equal to alleging that it was stolen, and he knew it. Grandi v. United States (C. C. A.) 262 F. 123; Wendell v. United States (C. C. A.) 34 F.(2d) 92; Melanson v. United States (C. C. A.) 256 F. 783. Second, the indictment alleged merely that the defendant well knew that the ear had been transported in interstate commerce. On the same authorities we may take this as sufficiently implying that the ear had been so transported. But the majority opinion points out that for all the indictment says, the transportation might have happened long before the defendant received and sold it, and that it is not, therefore, alleged that the car was then a part of interstate commerce. This is undoubtedly a substantial defect, but one that never occurred to the defendant or his counsel, and was never specially presented to the court below, but was discovered by this court in its consultation, and the whole record plainly shows that it is purely abstract, because the ease in fact involved no ancient, but a very recent, transportation. In appellant’s brief the only specification of error touching the demurrer is this: “1. The court erred in overruling and denying appellant’s demurrer to count three of the indictment because such count did not aver directly that the car in question was a stolen car.” No other point was argued by brief or orally, and none other was apparently presented in the trial court. If the judge had really ruled that it was not necessary that the car be in fact stolen, or that when received and sold it be still a part of interstate commerce, and if in his rulings on evidence and in his instructions he had governed himself accordingly, the error would have had practical consequences; but no such thing occurred here. Appellant’s counsel in his brief says: “There is no doubt but that the ear in question was stolen, (a), by someone; (b), at Mobile, Alabama; (c), on June 23, 1929; (d), between 7:39 and 9:30 P. M.; (e), and was sold in Pensacola-by appellant on June 25th, 1929.” The record shows that there was never any contention to the contrary. The sole defense was that defendant did not know it was stolen. The case was tried exactly like it would have been if the indictment had been letter-perfect, and just like it will be when a new indictment is gotten. There is no contention that the defendant was not in fact fully informed of the nature of the charge against him (see Segurola v. U. S., 275 U. S., at page 110, 48 S. Ct. 77, 72 L. Ed. 186), or that he is not by this record sufficiently protected from another prosecution for this same offense. That this court, as the result of its own astuteness, should grant a new trial on a point which, although latent in the general demurrer, was not really raised below, and not complained of here, and which had no bearing whatever on the real case, seems to me highly technical and forbidden by the statute. Horning v. District of Columbia, 254 U. S. 135, 41 S. Ct. 53, 65 L. Ed. 185; Segurola v. United States (C. C. A.) 16 F.(2d) 563, affirmed 275 U. S. 106, 48 S. Ct. 77, 72 L. Ed. 186.