Court Opinion

ID: 9449457
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 16:12:50.604053+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:50.746455
License: Public Domain

BAZELON, Chief Judge
(concurring).
I agree entirely with the court’s opinion. I address myself only to our brother Burger’s individual interpretation of the principles unanimously adopted by this court en banc in McDonald v. United States, 114 U.S.App.D.C. 120, 312 F.2d 847 (1962). These principles were involved in a subsequent case — Hawkins v. United States, 114 U.S.App.D.C. 44, 310 F.2d 849 (1962), where a unanimous panel of this court applied them. But as the court’s opinion in the present case shows, McDonald is not here involved. Hence any discussion of that case, including reference to its effect on the earlier cases of Tatum v. United States, 88 U.S.App.D.C. 386, 190 F.2d 612 (1951); Clark v. United States, 104 U.S.App.D.C. 27, 259 F.2d 184 (1958); and David v. United States, 160 U.S. 469, 16 S.Ct. 353, 40 L.Ed. 499 (1895), is abstract and hypothetical. Accordingly, I refrain from any such discussion.
I am constrained to point out, however, that much of our brother Burger’s present commentary upon McDonald appears to be based upon the language and reasoning of his concurring opinion in Blocker v. United States, 110 U.S.App.D.C. 41, 45, 288 F.2d 853, 857 (1961), which a majority of this court both there and in later cases have consistently refused to follow. In Campbell v. United States, 113 U.S.App.D.C. 260, 307 F.2d 597 (1962), we reversed the conviction for an erroneous instruction which-, followed the concurring opinion in Blocker. In McDonald, decided after Campbell, the trial court’s instruction was consistent with the concurring opinion in. Blocker. We held that the instruction was “not an accurate statement of the-test for criminal responsibility in this. Circuit.” 312 F.2d at 851. In the recent cases of Dail v. United States (No. 17016), and Anderson v. United States(Misc. 1664), both subsequent to McDonald, the Government conceded that the trial courts’ instructions were “similar to the charge which [this] court found improper in Campbell v. United. States * * and this court ordered the judgments of conviction vacated,, citing Campbell v. United States.