Court Opinion

ID: 9883690
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-10-06 02:11:15.649902+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:48:28.995854
License: Public Domain

STEPHENS, Associate Justice
(concurring in part and dissenting in part).
I concur in the view of the majority that by the language used in Rev.Stat. § 102 (1875), 2 U.S.C. § 192 (1934), 2 U.S.C.A. § 192, Congress intended to denounce as a misdemeanor not only wilful failure to make an initial appearance before a 'Committee when summoned, but also wilful refusal to continue to appear. But I am unable to agree with the view of the majority as to the effect upon the instant case of United States v. Murdock, 290 U.S. 389, 54 S.Ct. 223, 78 L.Ed. 381, 1933. Under that case, as I read it, I think that the trial court erred in excluding from evidence the proffered excerpts from the transcript of the Committee hearing.
• In United States v. Murdock, the defendant was charged with violation of a revenue act which made wilful failure to pay a tax, make a return, keep records, or supply information for the purposes of computation, assessment, or collection of the tax, a misdemeanor. At the trial the Government had proved that the defendant had refused to supply requested information to a revenue agent, and that the reason given by the defendant for his refusal was that to supply the information would incriminate him under a state statute. The defendant requested the following instruction :
“If you believe that the reasons stated by the defendant in his refusal' to answer questions were given in good faith and based upon his actual belief, you should consider that in determining whether or not his refusal to answer the questions .was wilful.” This instruction the trial court refused to give. On the contrary it charged the jury as follows:
“The court feels from the evidence in this case that the Government has sustained the burden cast upon it by the law and has proved that this defendant is guilty in manner and-form as charged beyond a reasonable doubt.”
On certiorari to the Supreme Court after the defendant’s conviction, he assigned the trial court’s action above described as error. An essential question before the Supreme Court was therefore whether the requested instruction should have been given. In its opinion the Court discussed the meaning of the word “wilful” as used in the statute, and held that it had a meaning which required the giving of the requested instruction. The Court said:
“The respondent’s refusal to answer was intentional and without legal jústification, but the jury might nevertheless find that it was not prompted by bad faith or evil intent, which the statute makes an element of the offense.” [Italics supplied] [290 U.S. 389, at pages 397, 398, 54 S.Ct. 223, 226, 78 L.Ed. 381.]
The Court said also, it is true, that the question whether danger of incrimination under a state statute was a lawful basis for refusal to answer by one under examination in a Federal tribunal had not been determined by the Supreme Court at the time of the defendant’s refusal to furnish information. But in my view the Supreme Court meant by this merely that the unsettled state of the law was a circumstance from which the jury might properly have concluded that in refusing to supply the information the defendant was acting in good faith. Indeed, the Court immediately said:
“The trial court could not, therefore, properly tell- the jury the defendant’s assertion of the privilege was so unreasonable and ill founded as to exhibit bad faith and establish willful wrongdoing.” [290 U.S. 389, at page 396, 54 S.Ct. 223, 226, 78 L.Ed. 381.]
In view of the very broad language of the instruction requested and held necessary, and of the very broad language used by the Court in describing bad faith or evil intent as an element of the offense denounced by the statute, I cannot think that the Court meant to rule that an unsettled state of law was the only circumstance from which an absence of bad faith or evil intent in a re*363fusal to comply with the statute might be inferred. Stating it very briefly, I think that the Murdock Case holds that even though the defendant had no legal justification for refusing to supply the information required of him, nevertheless, if his refusal was based upon an actual bona fide belief that he was not required to supply it, that belief should be considered in determining whether or not his refusal to answer was wilful in the sense of being prompted by bad faith or evil intent.
The statute involved in the instant case substantially parallels the one in the Murdock Case. In the latter, the statute made it punishable wilfully to fail to make a return or to supply information for the benefit of the executive branch of the Government. Here, it makes it a misdemeanor wilfully to make default in attending a Committee hearing and supplying information for the benefit of the legislative branch of the Government. Both statutes use the word “wilful” in application to omissions denounced. Under these circumstances, it seems to me that, as the law now stands— and certainly the defendant is entitled to be tried under the law as it now stands— exactly what was said in the Murdock Case to be the meaning of the word “wilful” must be said to be the meaning of that word here, so that bad faith or evil intent is a necessary element of the statutory offense.
The trial court concluded in the instant case that the Murdock Case, as above interpreted, was controlling, because it instructed the jury:
“If you believe that the reasons stated by the defendant in his refusal to remain longer at the Committee hearing were given in good faith and based upon his actual belief you should consider those reasons in determining whether or not his refusal to remain was wilfull.”
And also:
“The word ‘wilful’ in the ordinary sense in which it is used in the statute means not merely voluntarily but with bad purpose.” The majority are of the view that by giving these instructions the trial court adequately protected the defendant’s rights. With this I cannot agree, because I think it clear that while the Government was permitted to introduce evidence in terms of such instructions, the defendant was not. The trial court permitted the Government to introduce evidence not merely that the defendant absented himself from the Committee hearings voluntarily, but also that he did so in bad faith or with evil intent. The Government’s evidence that the defendant absented himself voluntarily was the defendant’s own statement that he would' no longer attend the Committee hearings, together with proof that he left the hearings and did not come back. This sufficiently established that the defendant’s action was wilful, if that word be taken to mean voluntary only. But the Government was permitted to go further and introduce the testimony of a witness Kiefer to the effect that at a meeting of the Board of Directors of the Old Age Revolving Pensions Ltd., held some time before the commencement of the Committee hearings, at which meeting the defendant was present, it was agreed that Dr. Town§end would walk out of the Committee hearings at the proper time for the psychological effect and the attendant publicity, if, as, and when he was subpoenaed, and to the effect that “it was considered [in this meeting] to be a masterpiece of strategy if at the psychological time Dr. Townsend would either walk out of the committee or refuse to testify.”
The defendant denied agreeing to any such plan. But if the jury believed the testimony of the witness Kiefer, it might well have reached the conclusion that the defendant discontinued attendance at the Committee hearings “prompted by [the] bad faith or evil intent, which the statute makes an element of the offense” under the ruling in United States v. Murdock. Certainly, therefore, the defendant was entitled to introduce evidence, if any there was available to him, tending to prove that his default was not “prompted by bad faith or evil intent,” but was, on the contrary, “in good faith and based upon his actual belief” that he need no longer attend the hearings. Seeking thus to rebut the evidence of bad faith or evil intent, the defendant first offered in evidence the entire transcript of the Committee hearings for the three days on which the defendant had testified, together with the transcript of the executive session of the Committee held on the following day. This was refused admission. The whole of this transcript does not appear in the record, and therefore it cannot be said whether the rejection of this transcript, as distinguished from the excerpts hereinafter referred to, was error. But the defendant then offered excerpts from the transcript. These are in the record and they show that he was asked, among others, the *364following questions: Whether he encouraged the sentiment that he “is the embodiment of Jesus Christ”; whether he knew “The charge which is made, or alleged to be made . . . that Mr. Warmbold [apparently an associate in the Townsend movement] . • . . is charged with kissing an Indian Squaw in public”; whether he often quoted the Bible; whether he be-lived in a Supreme Being. The trial court refused to admit these excerpts in evidence.
I think this exclusion was error. In my view, if the jury had had this evidence before it, it might have concluded therefrom that although the defendant was without legal justification for absenting himself from the Committee hearings, his so doing was not “prompted by bad faith or evil intent,” but was “in good faith and based upon his actual belief” that the hearings were not being conducted for a legislative purpose, and that therefore he was not, as a matter of law, required to continue to attend; and the jury might therefore have concluded under the instructions of the court, based upon United States v. Murdock, that for lack of “bad faith or evil intent,” which is an element of the offense of wilfully making default, the defendant was not guilty.
I do not say that the hearings were without legislative purpose — so that the defendant would not have been guilty of contempt, under Kilbourn v. Thompson, 103 U.S. 168, 26 L.Ed. 377, 1880, for refusing to attend them; and I do not say that the questions referred to above were necessarily irrelevant to a legislative purpose — so that the defendant would not have been punishable, under Sinclair v. United States, 279 U.S. 263, 292, 49 S.Ct. 268, 271, 73 L.Ed. 692, 1929, for refusing to answer them. The questions may have been directed toward proving that the defendant’s beliefs and associations were such as to cast doubt upon the dependability of legislation proposed by him. These points are not before us. What I say, and what seems to me clear, is that in United States v. Murdock, the Supreme Court has recognized that while one required by statute to make a return, or to supply information; may not be legally justified in failing to do so, nevertheless, the crime of wilfully failing to make a return or to supply information involves as a necessary element bad faith or evil intent. The application of this distinction in the instant case wherein the defendant is charged with the crime of wilfully defaulting, necessarily placed in issue his state of mind in defaulting, i. e., placed in issue whether he acted in bad. faith or with evil intent, or in good faith. Therefore, I think that just as the Government had a right at the trial to introduce evidence of the defendant’s bad faith or evil intent, so the defendant had a right to introduce evidence tending to show good faith or good intent. That right he was, in my view, denied by the exclusion of the proffered excerpts. This error — as I see it — of the trial court was undoubtedly harmful.
I think, therefore, that the judgment of conviction should be reversed and the case remanded' for a new trial.