Court Opinion

ID: 9448321
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:31:25.789833+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:22.782826
License: Public Domain

DUFFY, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
 I agree with Judge KILEY that if the trial of this case were free from prejudicial error, the evidence viewed most favorably to the Government would support the verdict and judgment. I also agree the indictment was sufficient on defendant’s motion to dismiss. However, a careful study of the record convinces me that prejudicial errors were committed, and that there is no escape from the conclusion that a new trial must be ordered.
It is well to bear in mind that this is not a tax evasion case. The indictment charged violations of Title 26, § 7206(1), the so-called False Statement statute. Taxpayer reported income from Premium Beer Sales, Inc. of $42,862.25 for 1956; $67,540.85 for 1957 and $68,871.70 for 1958, and paid income taxes on the basis of these receipts. However, he claimed a deduction of $515.51 in 1956, $1726.76 in 1957 and $1753.66 in 1958 as a portion of his automobile expenses while acting as agent for Premium. It is the Government’s claim that taxpayer was not employed by Premium, hence the statements in defendant’s tax returns as to the relatively small deductions, were false.
For some years past, defendant has received wide publicity in the press in the Chicago area, and elsewhere, as the reputed leader of an organization or group sometimes known as the Syndicate, said to be of great influence and controlled or run by hoodlum interests. When the instant charges were brought, all newspapers and other news media in the Chicago area gave wide publicity to the charges against defendant and the impending trial. At each step of the proceedings, the public was given vivid accounts, often mentioning defendant’s reputed background. The sentational nature of the news stories made it extremely difficult for the defendant to have a fair trial in the Chicago area, unless the jury were sequestered.
Pertinent is the statement of Mr. Justice Douglas,1 “A defendant, however, is on trial for a specific crime, and is not to be condemned, imprisoned, or executed for what laymen would call his bad character or reputation. See Michelson v. United States, 335 U.S. 469, 475-476, 69 S.Ct. 213, 93 L.Ed. 168. * * * At other times the papers may so beat the drums of prejudice and passion as to make it doubtful whether a trial in the local courthouse can be fair to a particular defendant. * * * The point is that our remedy for excessive comment by the press is not the punishment of editors, but the granting of new trials, changes in venue, or continuances to parties who are prejudiced.” Here, defendant did not ask for a change of venue. However, requests for continuances based upon illness of principal counsel, were denied.
The trial of this case extended over eight weeks. On the first day of the trial, on the voir dire, the District Court did admonish the prospective jurymen not to read about the trial in the newspapers or listen to the radio or TV accounts of the trial. However, the sensational head-' lines continued throughout the eight weeks, and although the District Judge frequently was requested by defendant’s counsel to question the jury as to whether these accounts had come to the attention of any of the jurors, he refused to do so; nor did he give any further cautionary instructions.2
*140The jury separated each night. One would have to be naive indeed to think that even a well-intentioned juror could escape the bombardment of flaming headlines in newspapers and the sensational reporting of the trial on TV and radio. Although I do not say it was the trial judge’s duty to examine jurors separately each time a motion was made by defendant’s counsel, I believe that as a minimum, the trial judge should have frequently repeated the admonition given on the first day of the trial. Under somewhat similar circumstances, some trial judges have adopted the practice of giving such an admonition at the close of each day’s session of a trial. This is a good practice. To do so would not consume more than thirty seconds each time it was given,
The dissenting opinion argues there is no affirmative proof in this case that any juror read any newspaper account of the trial or listened to radio or TV accounts thereof. However, counsel for defendant took the only course open to them in moving that the trial judge ascertain whether any juror had read or heard such accounts. When the judge declined to act, there was nothing further that defense counsel could do in that respect.
Newspapers may properly print information which jurors, in a particular ease, should not know. Rules of evidence are designed to protect an accused from prejudice. Testimony which a judge would not receive in evidence should not come to the jurors’ attention by means of press, radio or TV. I hope we have not reached the point in the trial of criminal cases in this country when jurors will decide the innocence or guilt of a defendant on information other than that received in the usual and proper manner from the witness stand. Where jurors are permitted to separate each night during a trial, which is usually the case, and where public sentiment has been aroused by sensational news stories often containing information which could not be received in evidence at the trial, the trial judge has a heavy duty to do everything in his power to assure a fair trial to the defendant.
The trial court erred in permitting the Government to introduce defendant’s tax returns without the W-2 forms being attached, and by preventing defendant from introducing his duplicate copies of such forms. These forms are statements by the employer showing the Social Security number of the employee, the total wages paid to the employee, and the total amount deducted and withheld as income tax. Any employer furnishing a false statement is subject, by federal statute, to fine and imprisonment. A duplicate copy must be furnished to the employee.
As defendant was charged with making false statements in his income tax returns, he was entitled to have those returns received in evidence in the same condition as they were when he executed and filed same. If the Government’s employees had detached and destroyed those W-2 forms, the Court should have permitted the duplicates thereof to be received in evidence.
I do not understand the statement in the dissenting opinion that the W-2 forms would have been merely cumulative evidence. The principal and controlling question in the case at bar is whether defendant had been an employee of Premium during the years in question. The defendant had the right to bring in all available pertinent evidence to prove his contention. The W-2 forms had been executed by Premium under a statute providing a penalty for making a false statement, and they designated defendant as an employee of Premium. Apparently the forms were executed prior to any date when the Government had raised any question as to the validity of the claimed employment. If, in fact, the original forms had been destroyed, the duplicates should have been received in evidence. In my view, there was no justification for excluding such evidence because it was “cumulative” or for any other reason.
I fully agree with Judge KILEY that the admission of defendant’s federal *141income tax returns from 1940 through 1955 was prejudicial error. The returns and testimony with reference to same, disclosed a total income of about $1,200,-000 for those years received principally from gambling and upon which income taxes of nearly a half million dollars had been paid. There was no evidence in this case of gambling income received by defendant since 1955. The stated reason for their admission was motive.
The Government prosecutors said they would not seek to make use of the sixteen tax returns which antedated the charges in the indictment until they had “presented completely our evidence of falsity in the returns.” Before any such proof was presented, the trial judge admitted the returns into evidence and copies of the 1940-1955 returns were promptly turned over to newspaper reporters, apparently by the prosecutors. Upon objections by the defendant, the trial judge stated he could not impound evidence that had been received.
Of course, the evidence of another offense wholly independent of the one charged, is inadmissible. This was not a tax evasion case. No claim was made in this case that the former returns violated the law. The apparent purpose of the Government was to show that over a period of many years, defendant was a big-time gambler. The manner in which the 1940-1955 income tax returns was handled, in my opinion, was prejudicial to the right of the defendant to have a fair trial on the charges which were then before the Court.
Defendant’s counsel demanded the production of statements in the hands of the Government in order that they might be examined under the terms of the Jencks Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3500. Some of these were examined by the trial judge in camera. Defendant claims that in each such case, the Judge adopted completely the deletions suggested by Government counsel. I express no opinion on that point. However, the Judge did not examine in camera some of the other statements withheld by the Government. He accepted the representations of Government counsel that the statement did not come within the Jencks Act. No matter how great was the Judge’s confidence in the statements of Government’s counsel, it was the Judge’s responsibility to make the examination himself. It was his nondelegable duty to do so.
Having reached the conclusion that defendant did not have a fair trial, I concur in the judgment ordering a new trial. My feeling is well expressed in the statement in the concurring opinion of Judge Clark in United States v. Bufalino, 2 Cir., 285 F.2d 408, 420, “For in America we still respect the dignity of the individual, and even an unsavory character is not to be imprisoned except on definite proof of specific crime.”

. “The Public Trial and the Free Press.” 46 A.B.A. Journal, p. 841.

. In his final instructions to the jury, the trial judge did recall the admonition he had given more than eight weeks previously about reading press accounts of the trial. As the jury, at that time, was about to be locked up in the jury room, the admonition would seem to be a bit late.