Court Opinion

ID: 9456624
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 19:58:06.27157+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:02.861401
License: Public Domain

J. SKELLY WRIGHT, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
The only evidence connecting appellant with this crime is his statement to his mother in the presence of her friend that he had killed a soldier in an alley. No description of either the soldier or the alley or the reason for or circumstances surrounding the killing was included in the statement. Appellant testified that he was joking when he told his mother he had killed a man, that he had heard of the killing from one Raymond Smith, and that on the night in question Smith bragged of killing the victim in this case, stating: “Man, I just got me one. I just got me a man up the corner.” This apparently was the same story appellant had told the police from the time of his arrest, and it was fully corroborated on trial by two other witnesses who testified they had heard Smith say the same thing. Under the circumstances it is doubtful that the case should have gone to the jury at all. Certainly one would feel less uneasy about this conviction if there were at least some evidence, other than appellant’s statement to his mother, to support it. Compare Smith v. United States, 348 U.S. 147, 153, 75 S.Ct. 194, 99 L.Ed. 192 (1954); Opper v. United States, 348 U.S. 84, 89-90, 75 S.Ct. 158, 99 L.Ed. 101 (1954).
In any event, appellant is entitled to a new trial. Appellant produced Raymond Smith as a witness. Before allowing Smith to testify before the jury, the trial court determined that Smith would assert his rights under the Fifth Amendment if questioned about the killing. Whereupon the court refused to allow him to be produced before the jury and instructed counsel not to refer to the matter in their closing arguments to the jury. No instruction on the subject was given the jury by the court. Thus the jury was permitted to draw the inference that appellant’s defense was framed — otherwise he would have produced Smith.
Pretermitting the question whether appellant had a right to place Smith on the witness stand before the jury, at the very least appellant was entitled to an instruction which would neutralize any inference arising from the failure to produce him. The majority admits as much *547and says that in the future such an instruction should be given. In the meantime appellant has a life sentence to serve. I cannot help but believe that if such an instruction had been given in this admittedly borderline ease, the jury, or at least one juror, might have been unable to conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that appellant was guilty of first degree murder.
I respectfully dissent.