Court Opinion

ID: 9448885
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 23:47:53.730338+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:31:35.474403
License: Public Domain

FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge
(concurring).
There being no evidence of any repetition of threats by Tolub between August 23 and October 25, 1955, and only the vaguest evidence as to how the ten $100 weekly payments during that period were made, I do not wish to be committed to the view that his receipt of each $100 constituted a separate violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1951. The multiplication of counts in indictments has become a matter of serious concern, because of the threat thereby posed to the effective working of the jury system and the possibility of sentences out of proportion to the true gravity of the offense. The mail fraud case cited by the majority, Badders v. United States, 240 U.S. 391, 36 S.Ct. 367, 60 L.Ed. 706 (1916), is rather plainly distinguishable, as is United States v. Guterma, 281 F.2d 742, 752-753 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 364 U.S. 871, 81 S.Ct. 114, 5 L.Ed.2d 93 (1960). The bribery case, Patton v. United States, 42 F.2d 68 (8 Cir., 1930), comes closer, but there the defendant was the payer, not the receiver; quite clearly a “fresh impulse” was needed for each payment. In re Snow, 120 U.S. 274, 7 S.Ct. 556, 30 L.Ed. 658 (1887), and United States v. Universal C. I. T. Credit Corp., 344 U.S. 218, 73 S.Ct. 227, 97 L.Ed. 260 (1952), are on the other side of the line, but I freely concede that, in Mr. Justice Frankfurter’s elegant phrase, 344 U.S. at 224, 73 S.Ct. 227, this case “is not attracted” by them either. Since Judge Metzner wisely made the sentences on counts 2 through 12 concurrent, we are not obliged to decide the issue here; I would dispose of it on the basis indicated in footnote 3 of my brother Lumbard’s opinion.