Court Opinion

ID: 9445290
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:24:38.791306+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:12.023239
License: Public Domain

BAZELON, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
Appellant testified at the administrative hearing in October 1954 that, some twenty years earlier, she had been a member of the Communist Party and had known and dealt with Lamb as a Communist. Those were the bare hones of her story. In her testimony she adorned them with a diversity of details of political intrigue and sex. In February 1955, recalled as a witness, she declared that her previous testimony had been perjury and that she had been coerced into giving it by one of the Commission’s attorneys.
To establish that the February testimony was false, the Government would have had to prove the details of the story of her Communist activities and her relations with Lamb. On the other hand, to establish that the October testimony was false, the Government would have had to disprove those same details.
But the Government adopted a course which made a choice unnecessary. It simply charged her with falsely testifying that she had not made the following statements to various Government agents before either of the hearings: (1) that she had been a member of the Communist Party during a certain period1 and (2) that, in connection with her Communist activities during that period, she had met Lamb and associated and consorted with him. Thus the truth or falsity of the substance of the statements she denied making was irrelevant. The only question was whether her denial that she made them was false.
The testimony of the various agents that the statements were in fact made, *700if believed by the jury,- would have been enough to prove the case. The agents did so testify. But, perhaps to lend the witnesses’ testimony an air of greater verisimilitude, the Government extracted from them a wealth of irrelevant, but prejudicial, detail as to other and additional statements allegedly made by the appellant. Those details were spread through the testimony of four witnesses on several different days of the trial and, in addition, were specifically and forcefully restated to the jury in the Government’s summation. This irrelevant evidence included the following: that appellant had said that she had attended Communist Party “strategy” meetings with Lamb; that she had met various named known Communists at such meetings; that plans were made at the meetings to recruit attractive young girls into the Communist Party to be used for proselytizing service-men; that these meetings had discussed the place of the Communist Party in the Farmer-Labor Convention and the role of the Party in founding the National Lawyers Guild; that she had attended the Farmer-Labor Convention in Chicago with Lamb; that she had attended a meeting with him in Washington concerning the founding of the National Lawyers Guild; that she was a delegate to the convention of the Teachers Union which was affiliated with the Communist Party; that she and Lamb had attended a breakfast where Norman Thomas was also present and that Thomas had refused to break bread with them; that Lamb, at cocktails one day, had taken out a map and had discussed with her the Communist Party’s plans and strategy for the conquest of Asia and the domination of the world. In addition to such political intrigue, according to the Government witnesses, the appellant told them of her illicit sex relations with Lamb.
That this was prejudicial testimony is no longer open to question. “ * * * it is now the generally accepted view that to write or speak of a person or an organization as being ‘communist’ or a ‘communist sympathizer’ is to subject such person or organization to public hatred, odium and contempt, to his immediate harm, and is therefore libelous per se. * * * In the .temper of the times, the communist label is even more odious and defamatory than the pro-Nazi and pro-Fascist label of another day.”2 The admission of the testimony in evidence was error.
Whether this error was so plain and so prejudicial as to be before us on appeal even though the evidence was not objected to at the trial3 or whether failure to object is of any significance in the face of the trial judge’s view that the evidence would be admissible even over objection 4 are questions we need not decide.
If the admission in evidence of the irrelevant and highly prejudicial testimony is not ground for reversal, the refusal of the trial judge to allow appellant to rebut this testimony was such ground. The following colloquy is typical:
*701The Court: * * * The issue of this case is whether she made a statement to the FBI, which she later testified she had not made.
Mr. Dwyer [Appellant’s counsel]: Yes, sir.
The Court: Whether that original statement was true is immaterial. The only question is whether she made that statement. * * *
Mr. Dwyer: * * * [The Government] was allowed to bring in direct examination all about the Purple Cow in Cleveland, and the Communist activities. That isn’t even in the indictment. I can’t even bring it in myself to rebut it.
The Court: No. Again let’s bear in mind what the channel is, and we have to stay within the channel. It is immaterial whether she was telling the truth or telling untruths. The question is, did she make those statements.
It is palpably unfair to allow a party to introduce evidence highly prejudicial to his adversary’s cause and then to exclude the adversary’s rebuttal.5
I would order a new trial.

. According to Count IV, 1934-37; according to the other two counts, 1934-36.

. Utah State Farm Bureau Federation v. National Farmers Union Service Corp., 10 Cir., 1952, 198 F.2d 20, 23, 33 A.L.R. 2d 1186; see also cases there cited. And see Braden v. Commonwealth, Ky. 1955, 277 S.W.2d 7, 10: “A charge such as this well may be calculated to produce hysteria among the friends of accused and cause them to forsake him. It is a depressing thought but the fact is that at this time in our country’s history it may be worth a man’s reputation to attempt to assist a friend to raise funds for defense against a charge of sedition, especially where a question of communism is involved.”

. Rule 52(b), F.R.Crim.P., 18 U.S.C.A.; Tatum v. United States, 1951, 88 U.S. App.D.C. 386, 388-389, and note 3, 190-F.2d 612, 614-615.

. The trial judge said: “Now, it is true that certain statements that were quoted by Hr. Powers [a Government witness] are not quoted in the indictment. I allowed them in the absence of objection.. I would have overruled any objection on the theory that it is part of the res gestae, and the whole conversation is admissible.”

. Of. Sun Printing & Publishing Ass’n v. Edwards, 2 Cir., 1602, 113 E. 445, 448: “But. whether the evidence was competent in this view or not, it was admissible because the plaintiff, having opened the door and availed himself of its benefit, was foreclosed from precluding the defendant from its benefit. The testimony *702given by the plaintiff was of a character likely to influence the jury, and we cannot doubt it was prejudicial to the defendant.” See also McBoyle v. United States, 10 Cir., 1930, 43 F.2d 273, 275; Warren Live Stock Co. v. Farr, 8 Cir., 1905, 142 F. 116, 117; Ward v. Blake Mfg. Co., 8 Cir., 1893, 56 F. 437, 441.
I express no opinion as to whether appellant’s counter-evidence should have been admitted on some theory related to entrapment or subornation, as urged by appellant, or as affecting the credibility of the Government’s witnesses.