Court Opinion

ID: 9464056
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 23:24:19.502008+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:38:26.502955
License: Public Domain

BROWN, Chief Judge,
concurring:
When I wrote the panel opinion in this case, 546 F.2d 135, at 137, I felt that after years and years of pleading, preaching, and begging District Judges to read, heed and follow Mann’s handwriting on the wall, the only way to bring the lesson home to trial judges was to state our holding, not in words as we had so fruitlessly done, but in action, the consequences of which would put on the already overburdened Judge the useless necessity of a second trial.
While that technique does not survive as an automatic reversal, perhaps it has in judicial institutional statesmanship served an even more useful purpose. For the Court, through the excellent opinion by Judge Clark, sees its own aberrations which go a long way toward justifying unconcern by District Judges who sought guidance not so much in what we said but in what we did.
Now that the Court speaks loud and clear, the need for the stringent therapy of automatic reversal largely disappears as a practical matter. I confess that the pungent dissenting-concurring opinion of Judge Godbold highlights concerns I share, but it does not impel me to a dissent.
Now after 14 years of Mann and manless Mann, we are overwhelmingly of the view that Mann and its satellites are forbidden. By the Court’s opinion we know what we have imposed on ourselves. The District Judges, with a time interval to eradicate from mind and jury instruction forms, know what we have imposed on them.
It is up to each of us to carry this out.
JAMES C. HILL, Circuit Judge, with whom GEE, Circuit Judge, joins, specially concurring.
One of the most important duties of courts of appeals is to define the law so *1257that litigants, lawyers, and district court judges can determine their rights and duties with some degree of certainty. The majority opinion is an excellent example of our court’s undertaking to do just that. Without presuming to prejudge future cases, the court nevertheless determines this cause, and, in doing so, the court clearly and positively articulates its conclusions concerning the propriety vel non of the jury instruction under consideration. Further, by making clear suggestions for instructions in future cases, the court’s opinion provides guidance for district judges and counsel. Instructions conforming with the court’s guidelines will be correct and adequate.
The special nature of my concurrence does not stem from any mental reservation concerning the instructions that the court has given so well, but from the court’s underlying premise in formulating these instructions. This court has waged a long and frustrating war with the Mann charge, a war with which I cannot agree.
The court in Mann held that the charge in that case, that the jury could infer that a person ordinarily intends the natural and probable consequences of his intentional acts “unless the contrary appears from the evidence,” impermissibly shifted the burden of proof to the defendant. The court stated that if the jury had been charged that “a person is presumed to intend the natural consequences of his own acts” (emphasis added), however, no error would have occurred. Mann v. United States, 319 F.2d 404, 409 (5th Cir. 1963), cert. denied, 375 U.S. 986, 84 S.Ct. 520, 11 L.Ed.2d 474 (1964). To support its reasoning, the Mann court cited Bloch v. United States, 221 F.2d 786 (9th Cir. 1955), reh. denied, 223 F.2d 297 (1955); Berkovitz v. United States, 213 F.2d 468 (5th Cir. 1954); and Wardlaw v. United States, 203 F.2d 884 (5th Cir. 1953), though in all three cases the disputed charge was that a presumption exists that a person intends the natural consequences of his acts and though each court reversed the conviction because the instruction impermissibly stated that the jury could presume criminal intent as a matter of law from the defendant’s actions. Therefore, these precedents were inapposite in Mann. Additionally, the Mann court stated that giving the charge was reversible error because the charge caused the inference to “become” a presumption, thereby shifting the burden of proof from the prosecution to the defendant. Mann, supra at 409.
The Mann court’s reasoning confuses the distinction between a presumption and an inference. A presumption is a deduction that the trier of fact is required by law to make. A presumption operates to render a defendant’s actual intent irrelevant if he has committed those acts that trigger operation of the presumption. Thus, a rebuttal presumption operates to shift the burden of proof to the defendant. An irrebuttable presumption does not afford the defendant any opportunity to overcome the presumption.
An inference, on the other hand, is a deduction that the trier of fact may make based on his own experience but one that he is not required to make. An inference is merely a method by which the trier of fact may determine that the party with the burden of proof has carried it. Thus, an inference does not shift the burden of proof. Edwards v. United States, 334 F.2d 360, 366-68 (5th Cir. 1964), cert. denied, 379 U.S. 1000, 85 S.Ct. 721, 13 L.Ed.2d 702 (1965); Knapp v. United States, 316 F.2d 794, 795-96 (5th Cir. 1963); Barfield v. United States, 229 F.2d 936, 939-40 (5th Cir. 1956); McCormick’s Handbook of the Law of Evidence 830 (2d ed. E. Cleary 1972); 9 Wigmore, Evidence § 2490, at 286-88 (3d ed. 1940).
When the law authorizes a party to carry the burden of proving a fact by circumstantial evidence, the law merely authorizes the jurors to draw inferences from proven facts. Thus, when seeking to prove a hypothesis, a party may succeed if the jury finds that certain facts have been proved and that, from those facts, the inference naturally follows that the hypothesized fact is true. 1 Wigmore, supra at § 25. A danger exists, however, that the proven *1258facts will be consistent not only with the asserted hypothesis, but also with contradictory hypotheses. Therefore, courts always have exercised care in submitting cases to juries in which proof of essential facts rests entirely on circumstantial evidence. Montoya v. United States, 402 F.2d 847 (5th Cir. 1968); Cohen v. United States, 363 F.2d 321 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 957, 87 S.Ct. 395, 17 L.Ed.2d 303 (1966); Barnes v. United States, 341 F.2d 189 (5th Cir. 1965); Cuthbert v. United States, 278 F.2d 220 (5th Cir. 1960).
The classic instruction on circumstantial evidence in criminal cases included the charge that the jury could not find the defendant to be guilty unless the evidence excluded every reasonable hypothesis other than guilt. Anderson v. United States, 30 F.2d 485 (5th Cir. 1929); Hendrey v. United States, 233 F. 5 (6th Cir. 1916); Garst v. United States, 180 F. 339 (4th Cir. 1910). In Holland v. United States, 348 U.S. 121, 75 S.Ct. 127, 99 L.Ed. 150 (1954), however, the United States Supreme Court held that this additional instruction was merely confusing and. incorrect when the jury is instructed properly concerning the defendant’s right to be proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Since that decision, the Fifth Circuit consistently has cited Holland to reject assignments of error based on the trial court’s failure to give the additional instruction. E. g., United States v. Boerner, 508 F.2d 1064, 1068-69 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 421 U.S. 1013, 95 S.Ct. 2418, 44 L.Ed.2d 681 (1975); United States v. Stokes, 471 F.2d 1318, 1321 (5th Cir. 1973); Bryant v. United States, 252 F.2d 746, 748 (5th Cir. 1958). Courts, however, occasionally append vestiges of this instruction to modern instructions concerning the treatment of circumstantial evidence. E. g., Thurmond v. United States, 377 F.2d 448 (5th Cir. 1967). I believe that the much maligned Mann instruction is such an instance.
Although the majority expressly disapproves the clause “so unless the contrary appears from the evidence” used in the Mann charge, I view this clause as a cautionary instruction intended for the benefit and protection of the defendant. The condemned admonition neither shifts the burden of proof to the defendant, nor requires the jurors to find criminal intent as a matter of law. Rather, it instructs the jurors that they may not even infer guilt from the evidence if they also might infer innocence. Defendants in criminal cases are entitled to have the jury clearly instructed as to every possible defense. Therefore, although a general charge is given concerning the defendant’s right to be proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the jury also should be charged concerning the weight to be given circumstantial evidence subject to more than one interpretation.
The difficulty in formulating an appropriate charge is well illustrated by our court’s struggles with the variety of charges given by the district courts since Mann. If a judge should charge that the inference of criminal intent must prevail unless the defendant has produced evidence causing the contrary to appear, the judge would err. A defendant is never required to produce any evidence. Holland v. United States, 348 U.S. 121, 138-39, 75 S.Ct. 127, 99 L.Ed. 150 (1954); Yee Hem v. United States, 268 U.S. 178, 45 S.Ct. 470, 69 L.Ed. 904 (1925); United States v. Lake, 482 F.2d 146, 149 (9th Cir. 1973); United States v. Broadhead, 413 F.2d 1351, 1361 (7th Cir. 1969), cert. denied, 396 U.S. 1017, 90 S.Ct. 581, 24 L.Ed.2d 508 (1970). A defendant, however, is entitled to call witnesses, to testify, and to offer other evidence if he so elects. Thus, a charge that would limit the jury’s search to the government’s evidence also would be improper.
To avoid these pitfalls, the draftsmen whose proposed instruction was adopted by the district court in Mann decided that the jury should be charged that if a reasonable hypothesis of innocence appeared from all the evidence in the case, an inference of guilt is unavailable. Jury Instructions and Forms for Federal Criminal Cases, 27 F.R.D. 39, Form 4.06 (1960). Nowhere does the instruction suggest that the defendant must introduce evidence supporting a reasonable hypothesis of innocence. Yet he *1259might do so, and, if he does, his evidence will defeat the inference of guilt just as surely as if the prosecution’s evidence was consistent with innocence as well as with guilt.
For these reasons, I am of the opinion that the “so unless the contrary appears from the evidence” clause in the Mann charge was a reasonable cautionary instruction, for the benefit of the defendant, where the government had attempted to prove intent by circumstantial evidence.
Nevertheless, it is time to still the waters, troubled since Mann. Judge Clark’s opinion for the court accomplishes that good purpose, and the jury instruction prescribed in it is good law. It is certainly as good as the instruction condemned in Mann.
Therefore, with these special observations, I CONCUR.
GODBOLD, Circuit Judge, with whom TUTTLE and GOLDBERG, Circuit Judges, join, concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I would hold that the Mann instruction is reversible error in all instances and would reverse the conviction. This is unabashedly arbitrary. The rule pronounced in the majority opinion purports to be judicially flexible but is no less arbitrary in application — if the Mann language is used the court will neither harmonize inconsistent statements nor consider curative statements. In effect, the reviewing court will pretend that other instructions given on the same subject matter were never given at all.
As between a rule “if you say it the case will be reversed,” and a rule “if you say it we will decide whether to reverse but in doing so we won’t consider anything else you said,” I opt for the former. It has at least the advantages of clarity and certainty, and all can tailor their activities accordingly. The court’s opinion invites the district courts to continue to roll the dice on possible reversal. If the invitation is accepted, the district court’s instruction is then to be reviewed under a standard unrelated to the general law of jury instructions and to everyday human communication.
AINSWORTH, Circuit Judge, with whom RONEY, Circuit Judge, joins, dissenting:
The majority opinion strives with commendable zeal to eliminate the confusion in this circuit which has occurred in jury instructions in criminal cases pertaining to proof of intent resulting from the panel opinion of this Court in Mann v. United States, 5 Cir., 1963, 319 F.2d 404, cert. denied, 375 U.S. 986, 84 S.Ct. 520, 11 L.Ed.2d 474 (1964). The decisions of various panels of this Court since Mann have so greatly eroded the rationale of Mann that it became apparent that the ruling in that case had very little vitality left. Now confronted with the golden opportunity really to clear up the confusion, the majority has dropped the ball while crossing the goal line.
The best way to eliminate confusion in these jury instructions is to take a stand long overdue, that is, to overrule the holding in Mann. The unacceptable phrase on proof of intent in the jury instructions in Mann so often considered by us in subsequent cases, namely, “so unless the contrary appears from the evidence,”' is not in my view prejudicial to the rights of a defendant nor does it shift the burden of proof to the defendant as has been contended. The instructions are proper and helpful to the jury in cases in which proof of intent is crucial. As Judge Hill points out in his special concurring opinion herein, this clause is actually a cautionary instruction intended for the benefit and protection of the defendant. I agree with Judge Hill that “The condemned admonition neither shifts the burden of proof to the defendant, nor requires the jurors to find criminal intent as a matter of law. Rather, it instructs the jurors that they may not even infer guilt from the evidence if they also might infer innocence. Defendants in criminal cases are entitled to have the jury clearly instructed as to every possible defense. Therefore, although a general charge is given concerning the defendant’s right to be proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt, the jury also should be charged concerning the weight to be given circum*1260stantial evidence subject to more than one interpretation.”
In United States v. Wilkinson, 5 Cir., 1972, 460 F.2d 725, the panel opinion held that “To paraphrase Mann, in a criminal case of this nature, the overall effect of the charge did not place a burden upon the defendant to produce evidence to overcome a presumption of guilt.” Id. at 733.
Now the majority has established instructions for use of the district courts in future cases on proof of intent by deleting the forbidden phrase “so unless the contrary appears from the evidence” but in other respects retaining the instructions we are considering here. The district judges are now informed by this Court’s edict that henceforth no district judge in this circuit shall deliver a charge to the jury on proof of intent which is couched in language which could reasonably be interpreted as shifting the burden of proof to the accused to produce proof of innocence. The district courts are informed that such an error “will not be absolved because other phrases defining the proper burden of proof are included in the instructions, no matter how often such corrective phrases are repeated.” This is a definite injunction to district judges in this respect.
But despite the admonition that such error “will not be absolved” no matter how often corrective phrases are repeated, in the next paragraph of the majority opinion we read that “We refuse to classify the giving of a charge in violation of paragraph 1, whether objected to or not, as the type of error which will automatically produce reversal.” I, of course, agree that there must be no automatic reversal because of use of the prohibited charge. The majority’s holding in this respect is mandated by common sense, and by the Supreme Court’s rulings on harmless error. However, on the one hand, states the majority, no amount of corrective phrases by a trial judge will cure the error of such a burden-shifting charge; but, on the other, says the majority, reversal on account of this type of error is not automatically produced. Thus we are back where we started before consideration of the present case, for the majority continues in its opinion that “If, despite our action today, the error should recur, the weighing of its harm to the accused shall remain a judicial matter to be resolved in the context of each case where it occurs.” Accordingly, the state of the law on this subject essentially remains unchanged.
All of this could be simply clarified by overruling the panel decision in Mann. Now confusion will continue to exist.
The majority’s holding that the case must be remanded to the panel with directions to reconsider the rights of the defendants in light of its opinion is inexplicable. We should rule now that the court’s instructions in this case so clearly state that the burden of proof is not shifted to the defendants and that the defendants have no obligation to produce any evidence that, despite the giving of the charge, there can be no conceivable reversible error in the circumstances. Thus the convictions should be affirmed.
The present case is very similar to our recent case of United States v. Roberts, 5 Cir., 1977, 546 F.2d 596, where the jury charge also contained the forbidden language “so unless the contrary appears from the evidence,” but the panel affirmed the conviction and held that the other portions of the judge’s charge placed the burden of proof on the Government. We referred in Roberts (footnote 3) to those portions of the court’s charge, as follows:
For example, instructions that the law presumes a criminal defendant to be innocent of crime; that the presumption of innocence alone is sufficient to acquit a defendant unless the jury is satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of defendant’s guilt; that the burden is always upon the Government to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; and that the burden never shifts to a defendant to produce any witnesses or any evidence.
To the same effect see also, e. g., our prior decisions in United States v. Duke, 5 Cir., 1976, 527 F.2d 386 (Morgan, J.), cert. denied, 426 U.S. 952, 96 S.Ct. 3177, 49 L.Ed.2d 1190 (1976); Helms v. United *1261States, 5 Cir., 1964, 340 F.2d 15 (Rives, J.), cert. denied, 382 U.S. 814, 86 S.Ct. 33, 15 L.Ed.2d 62 (1965); United States v. Jenkins, 5 Cir., 1971, 442 F.2d 429 (Bell, J.); United States v. Beasley, 5 Cir., 1975, 519 F.2d 233 (Clark, J.); United States v. Durham, 5 Cir., 1975, 512 F.2d 1281 (Coleman, J.).
The same thing happened in this case as happened in Roberts. As the Government points out in its supplemental brief, the court’s instructions in this case were clear on presumption of innocence, the Government’s burden of proof and the right of a defendant not to call any witnesses. At the opening of the trial the district court instructed the jury in part (R. 33):
After that the Government will introduce its witnesses and its evidence, present its case.
Following that, the defendant may or may not produce any evidence. A defendant does not have to do so. A defendant really doesn’t even have to cross examine the Government’s witnesses. The Government has the burden of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt before a jury can return a verdict of guilty. And there is no imposition upon a defendant of calling any witnesses or producing any evidence.
The court was careful to state that “The jury should not single out any one single instruction or ignore any one instruction, but consider all of them as stating the law applicable to the case.” (R. 34)
Then the court further pointed out (R. 35):
The law presumes a defendant to be innocent of crime, thus a defendant, although accused, begins the trial with a clean slate — with no evidence against him. And the law permits nothing but legal evidence presented before the jury to be considered in support of any charge against an accused. So, the presumption of innocence alone is sufficient to acquit a defendant unless the jury is satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt of the defendant’s guilt after careful and impartial consideration of all the evidence in the case.
The court continued in its instructions (R. 36):
The burden, as I said, is always upon the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If the jury views the evidence in the case as reasonably permitting either of two conclusions, one of innocence and the other of guilt, the jury should, of course, adopt the conclusion of innocence.
In its final instructions to the jury in this case, the court repeated some of its charge, stating (R. 589):
The jury will always bear in mind that the law never imposes upon a defendant in a criminal case the burden or duty of calling any witnesses or producing any evidence and no adverse inferences may be drawn from the failure to do so.
Further, the court said (R. 590):
The burden is always upon the prosecution to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This burden never shifts to a defendant; for the law never imposes upon a defendant in a criminal case the burden or duty of calling any witnesses or producing any evidence.
Then the court said to the jury (R. 593):
The Government is required to establish each of these elements beyond reasonable doubt. The law never imposes on the defendant in a criminal case the burden of introducing any evidence or calling any witnesses.
It is clear that the district judge in this case in his jury instructions carefully and scrupulously time and again referred to the presumption of innocence accorded a defendant, to the necessity of proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, also that the Government must bear the burden of proof at all times throughout the case to establish guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, and that the burden never shifted and that the defendants were not obliged to produce evidence of any kind in support of their case. Under these circumstances, the majority cannot justify its conclusion that the case should be remanded to the panel for further *1262consideration. Accordingly, the judgment appealed from should be affirmed.1

. Nor would I remand for a district court inquiry into the alleged misconduct of a juror concerning remarks about defendant’s counsel. It was stipulated what had occurred, 546 F.2d at 138, and the circumstances do not warrant interference with the district judge’s discretion in the matter. A further inquiry or investigation at that point would have seriously disrupted the trial. See Tillman v. United States, 5 Cir., 1969, 406 F.2d 930; United States v. Hendrix, 9 Cir., 1977, 549 F.2d 1225; United States v. McKinney, 5 Cir., 1970, 429 F.2d 1019.