Court Opinion

ID: 9449516
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:14:19.071647+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:52.082127
License: Public Domain

BURGER, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Judge FAHY’S vote for reversal is based essentially on the District Judge’s mention of “a presumption or an element” in his instruction on flight.1 The belief that this is “plain error” leading to reversal even absent any objection, is of necessity predicated on an assumption that the jury heard this precise word and grasped the legal concept of “a presumption” but failed to note the alternative which immediately followed “or an element or consideration”. It is difficult enough to articulate and sort out these concepts in the calm of a library with ample time, and it is impossible for me to believe any juror could think he was compelled by this instruction to find that flight meant guilt. I agree it would be erroneous to instruct the jury that a presumption existed without the qualification, such as was given here, but I would not reverse in this case for here even defense counsel took no note of the matter and made no objection.
*775Judge BAZELON’S separate position, which is not adopted by the court, illustrates the tendency to demand a perfect trial as distinguished from a fair trial, which is all the Constitution requires or mortal agencies can afford. See Lut-wak v. United States, 344 U.S. 604, 619, 73 S.Ct. 481, 97 L.Ed. 593 (1953). To meet this unspoken standard of a perfect-error-free-trial, he would overlay the jury charge in criminal cases, already approaching the “prolixity barrier” with more instructions and more explanations.
This is not a case of flight as Judge BAZELON argues, but rather one of a chain of circumstances commencing with evidence from which the jury could reasonably conclude that the appellant boarded the bus, left it one block later, was found moments later with the victim’s wallet and ,engaged with others dividing the contents. It was in this sequence that flight occurred when the owner demanded return of his wallet. With or without instructions, reasonable minds would be likely to draw from all of these circumstances inferences somewhat unfavorable to the accused. To isolate flight and treat it as though the evidence and instruction placed it in a vacuum as something separate and apart from the events leading up to it tends to distort the facts.
The District Judge’s charge in this case accurately informed the jury that flight alone is not sufficient evidence of guilt, but a fact from which the jury could infer guilt if it believed that the defendant was leaving the scene “under consciousness of guilt and for the purpose of evading arrest.” This instruction properly informed the jury that it is permissible to draw inferences from flight in the appropriate ease when common human experience would suggest such an inference. In so doing the District Court was entirely within what we have often and most recently held in Hunt v. United States, 115 U.S.App.D.C. -, 316 F.2d 652, 1963:
“And, while flight certainly does not raise a presumption of guilt, it is . still admissible evidence of consciousness of guilt.”
Fortunately the court does not accept Judge BAZELON’S position which, as I read it, would have us adopt an instruction which would at least confuse and probably inhibit juries in drawing such inferences. Fact issues and the reasonable inferences from accepted fact are for juries — not judges — in criminal trials and if we trust the jury system we do no need to attempt to guide every detail of jury deliberations. Let alone with a minimum of basic instruction juries can infuse the law with a sense of reality and can temper judicial technicality with the leaven of the common experience and community conscience. We should not attempt to limit the scope of jury deliberations by telling jurors to ignore their own experience and common sense, and in a case like the one before us, denigrate other evidence in the case which plainly suggests that flight was indeed indicative of guilt.
The desire to minimize if not eliminate flight as a source of reasonable inferences represents a futile attempt to require jurors to “unring the bell” of their individual and collective experiences. The portions of the instruction italicized in the margin disclose how carefully the District Judge instructed the jury that only limited inferences can be drawn from flight and that flight can be explained but in scrupulous compliance with our holding in Bray v. United States.2 The “fuller instructions regarding flight” urged by Judge BAZELON may be appropriate to a philosophical interchange between judges, lawyers and experts in psychology, but they are totally unnecessary to a jury and add nothing whatever to what the instruction conveyed to the jury. No one suggests *776that flight “establishes guilt” and it is grossly wide of the mark to imply that the charge given did so. Note again that the instruction said only that “flight may be considered by jurors as evidence of guilt * * *” and that this was only after flight was shown by “testimony you accept as credible * * * ” Here was a two-stage process outlined, which is what Judge BAZELON seems to contend for as something new; he relies on an isolated quotation from Vick v. United States, 216 F.2d 228 (5th Cir., 1954) but that must be read in light of the subsequent case in the same Circuit, Vaccaro v. United States, 296 F.2d 500, 502 (1961), where the Fifth Circuit said: “Flight is, of course, circumstantial evidence of guilt.” I take it that this means flight is a circumstance which can be considered in reaching a verdict as to guilt, which is exactly what the District Judge said in the charge in this case.
At best jurors get only a few general impressions from the trial judge’s charge. I think it is fair to say that they understand such concepts as presumptions of innocence, burden of proof, criminal intent and credibility. Beyond these fundamentals and description of the specific elements of a particular crime, most instructions probably become confusing and blur the juror’s recollection of the really vital elements of the 'charge.
This trial was not complicated; it was not a tax fraud case based on a net worth method of proof, or a complex conspiracy case. It was, under the evidence, a simple case of a “pickpocket” operating on a bus. In order to convict the jury had to find, beyond a reasonable doubt, that complainant’s purse had been pilfered and that appellant committed the act. The charge on credibility, which is attacked by Judge BAZELON, was entirely correct and fair to the accused. If the jury believed the complaining witness and disbelieved appellant’s explanation, of course, the rest of the case was “relatively simple” as the District Judge said. I do not believe a judge’s comment that a simple case is “relatively simple” constitutes error.
Since I find it difficult to imagine a case more clearly one for summary af-firmance, I must dissent.

. “There is a further doctrine of law that becomes pertinent in this case, and that is the testimony of the complaining witness, Cornell Watson, that the defendant fled from the alley where he was first confronted and ran for a period of several blocks. This brings into the case a presumption or an element or consideration which hinges around the principal that flight may be considered by jurors as evidence of guilt. In other words, you are entitled to draw from testimony • which you accept as credible a conclusion that flight on the part of a defendant was or is evidence of guilt. You are instructed, however, as a matter of law that flight means not merely a leaving, but means a leaving under consciousness of guilt and for the purpose of evading arrest. Therefore, if you find that the defendant’s conduct was induced by fear of arrest, then it is a flight from justice and you may consider it as a circumstance indicating guilt. If, on the other hand, the defendant has explained his presence at the point where he said he was first accosted by the complaining witness to your complete satisfaction, then the element of flight is not a factor to be considered by you. (Emphasis added.)
“The Court desires to point out one further element in this case and that is the fact that the identification of the defendant has been made by a single witness, that is, the complaining witness, Cornell Watson. You must consider in your deliberations whether there is any possibility of mistake on the part of the complaining witness in this matter of identification. • * * ”

. 113 U.S.App.D.C. 136, 306 F.2d 743 (1962).