Court Opinion

ID: 9637781
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 15:20:27.571065+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:10:00.553438
License: Public Domain

STEPHENS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The language of the trial judge in regard to the issue of the case as quoted in the majority opinion was not intended as an instruction upon the ultimate issues and could not have been so understood by the jurors. The instructions as a whole, it seems to me, compel this conclusion. I am not convinced that the judge’s comments and instructions upon the decisive point of the majority opinion were not more favorable to the defendants than the law required.
On Petition for Rehearing.
PER CURIAM.
The petition for rehearing is denied.
DENMAN and MATHEWS, Circuit Judges, concur.
STEPHENS, Circuit Judge, dissents.
*546DENMAN, Circuit Judge, concurring in the denial of the petition for rehearing).
Our opinion holds that the district court erred in excluding facts tending to show the truth of appellants’ “representations” concerning certain transactions in which Jesus was present and participating.
The petition for rehearing contends that there is another issue before the jury, i. e., whether appellants honestly “believed” their representations that certain works published and sold were dictated by Jesus and whether Mrs. Ballard believed her representations that she and other Ballards had shaken hands with Jesus. The petition cites the district court’s instruction: “The issue is: Did these defendants honestly and in good faith believe those things ? If they did, they should be acquitted * *
It would be strong evidence in support of this issue of the mental condition of belief, that these transactions with Jesus actually occurred in their presence. The right to produce such evidence was denied appellants.
Before the close of the Government’s case the district court made its ruling advising the jury that “whether that [dictation by Jesus and shaking hands with Jesus] occurred is not the concern of the court and is not the concern of the jury * * *. They [the jury] are not going to be permitted to speculate on the actuality of the happenings of these incidents.”
This was followed by the court’s instruction in submitting the case to the jury: “The defendants in this case made certain representations of beliefs in a divinity and in a supernatural power. Some of the teachings or representations of the defendants might seem extremely improbable to a great many people — for instance: the appearance of Jesus to dictate some of the works which have been introduced in evidence; the incident testified to by one of the defendants, Mrs. G. W. Ballard, that she shook hands with Jesus * * * these and other similar representations and statements might seem highly improbable to many people. Whether these incidents actually happened or not is for your consideration.”
Here we have not only the exclusion of proof and the instruction to disregard facts which would strongly tend to support an honest belief that they happened, but the suggestion of their improbability. The error is as prejudicial to the issue of honest belief as to the issue of purposeful misrepresentation.
The petition’s contention that the judgment of conviction should stand because there is other strong evidence of guilt has no merit. If, on a new trial, the jury should be persuaded to believe that these miraculous events had occurred, they well may acquit these appellants. The district court did not give its reason for its ruling and instruction. If the reason be because such facts could occur in no possible chain of natural material causation, it is a denial to the religious of the right to prove one of the bases of their belief in the intervention of the supernatural in the daily lives of human beings — an obvious denial of the freedom of religion of the First Amendment of the Constitution.