Court Opinion

ID: 9462274
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 22:36:49.994581+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:37:30.705521
License: Public Domain

HENRY J. FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge
(concurring and dissenting):
I join in the majority’s disposition of this appeal except for its directing of a new trial of Parker after correctly reversing for lack of proof his convictions on the conspiracy count and a related count for use of a communications facility in furtherance of the conspiracy. My brother Van Graafeiland’s opinion convincingly demonstrates that the Government failed in its proof of Parker’s participation in the conspiracy and that an acquittal ought to have been directed. Although Bryan v. United States, 338 U.S. 552, 70 S.Ct. 317, 94 L.Ed. 335 (1950), sustains our power to direct a new trial rather than a judgment of acquittal under such circumstances, it does not demand that the power be exercised in a case like Parker’s where there is no reason for thinking, as the majority of the Court of Appeals did there, that “the defect in the evidence might be supplied on another trial. . . . ” 338 U.S. at *1135559, 70 S.Ct. at 321. For a still more restrictive reading of Bryan, see United States v. Howard, 432 F.2d 1188, 1191 (9 Cir. 1970) (concurring opinion of Judges Ely and Hufstedler). At the very least the district court should be left free to decide, as Justices Black and Reed suggested in Bryan, 338 U.S. at 560, 70 S.Ct. 317, whether in light of this court’s opinion a new trial should be granted or a judgment of acquittal entered with respect to Parker. The Government, of course, is free, if it should so desire, to seek a new indictment of Parker for the substantive offenses indicated by its evidence.