Court Opinion

ID: 9460321
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 21:47:19.037326+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:36:34.463824
License: Public Domain

BELL, Circuit Judge
(dissenting):
I respectfully dissent. Two basic precepts in a system of criminal justice are (1) that it be a workable institution and, (2) that it be administered in an even handed manner. The majority opinion violates both precepts. It distorts the application of the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Constitution to the extent of burdening the system, and the only result of the distortion is a windfall to defendant Dinitz.
The distortion arises out of misconception on the part of the majority as to how the Double Jeopardy Clause is to be administered. In United States v. Jorn, 1971, 400 U.S. 470, 91 S.Ct. 547, 27 L.Ed.2d 543, the court was concerned with a case where the double jeopardy bar was claimed because of the grant of a mistrial by the trial court on its own motion. The test applied was that of whether the trial court abused its discretion. The majority applies the same test here, apparently giving no consideration to the different rule that obtains when the defendant seeks the mistrial. The Jorn decision points up the difference in its discussion of the policy underlying the application of the Double Jeopardy Clause. The right involved is that of a defendant to have his trial completed by a particular tribunal. In adverting to circumstances when reprosecution is allowed or not allowed, the court draws the distinction between those instances when the defendant gives up his option to have the cause determined by the first jury such as by motion for mistrial, a new trial, or by appeal, and those instances where the court deprives the defendant of such option. The court said:
“If that right to go to a particular tribunal is valued, it is because, independent of the threat of bad-faith conduct by judge or prosecutor, the defendant has a significant interest in the decision whether or not to take the case from the jury when circumstances occur which might be thought to warrant a declaration of mistrial. Thus, where circumstances develop not attributable to prosecutorial or judicial over-reaching, a motion by the defendant for mistrial is ordinarily assumed to remove any barrier to re-prosecution, even if the defendant’s motion is necessitated by prosecutorial or judicial error.” 400 U.S. at 485, 91 S.Ct. at 557.
The court explicated the prosecutorial or judicial overreaching situation by commenting that in such cases reprosecution might well be barred despite the defendant having made a motion for mistrial. *62400 U.S. 485, n. 12, 91 S.Ct. 547. Jorn goes on to point out that in the absence of a motion for mistrial by the defendant, manifest necessity for the mistrial must appear. It was under the manifest necessity doctrine that the court applied the abuse of discretion test.
Here we have a motion by defendant' for a mistrial and the error of the majority is seen in the avoidance of determining whether there was judicial overreaching on the part of the district court as distinguished from judicial error (equated by the majority opinion with an abuse of discretion).1 Under the teaching of Jorn, this issue cannot be avoided. The majority is correct in applying the double jeopardy bar if there was in fact judicial overreaching. The majority is in error if the conduct of the district court fell short of judicial overreaching.
This posture, of the case for decision is demanded by our own decisions following Jorn. See United States v. Romano, 5 Cir., 1973, 482 F.2d 1183, 1187-1188; United States v. Beasley, 5 Cir., 1973, 479 F.2d 1124, 1125-1126; United States v. Iacovetti, 5 Cir., 1972, 466 F.2d 1147, 1151-1152. In each of these cases the bar of double jeopardy was denied the defendant because of having sought the mistrial. Indeed, we recognized the premise in McNeal v. Hollowell, 5 Cir., 1973, 481 F.2d 1145, 1150-1151, that a defendant who engages in a course of conduct calculated to necessitate the granting of a mistrial, although not actually requesting a mistrial, máy be barred from relying on a double jeopardy defense.
The question for consideration then is whether the record makes out a case of judicial overreaching. The defendant was a third year law student who was charged with selling LSD. He was represented by retained counsel, Mr. Mel-don, from the time of his arrest to trial, a period of a little over two months, and the representation was vigorous from the standpoint of efforts to discover and suppress. On the day of the trial Mr. Meldon was joined in the defense by Mr. Baldwin, the law professor who handled this matter on appeal, and by Mr. Wagner, a Florida lawyer who resided in another district and who was not admitted to practice in the Northern District of Florida. Mr. Wagner stated to the court that he would handle the facts and that Mr. Baldwin would handle law questions and that the three appeared as co-counsel. The issue to be tried was a simple one: whether the jury would believe an undercover government agent who claimed that he purchased the LSD from the defendant. The defense was to discredit the informer by showing an effort by someone to extort money from the defendant after his arrest, presumably for dropping the prosecution.
While recognizing the possibility and even probability in some cases of different inferences being drawn by different readers of records, I draw the distinct conclusion from the record that Mr. Wagner conducted himself in an improper manner from almost the moment of his entry into the case. The trouble started in a preliminary hearing on a motion to suppress. There was impropriety on Wagner’s part in the opening statement in the form of arguing, rather than stating the case and, with regard to the baseless charge of extortion against the government witnesses. The district court gained the impression that Mr. Wagner was baiting the court and I find ample support for that impression. At any rate, after Wagner was removed from the case and after the discussion between his remaining two lawyers and an overnight delay, one of his lawyers made the following representation to the court:
“Your Honor, I have conferred with the Defendant and he wishes to move for a mistrial at this time and after full consideration of the situation and an explanation of the alternatives before him, he feels that he would move for a mistrial and that this would be in his best interest.”
Absent such a motion the district court could have gone forward with the trial. It may be, as is said in the ma*63jority opinion, that the case would have been reversed because of error in removing Mr. Wagner but there would have been no double jeopardy bar. It would have been the defendant who sought the reversal based on the removal of Mr. Wagner. Jorn, supra, 400 U.S. at 484, 91 S.Ct. 547, 27 L.Ed.2d 556.
It may be, of course, as the majority points out that other methods of control short of removal were available to the court. It may be that another judge would have utilized other methods but the question is whether the method utilized in this instance reached the proportions of judicial overreaching. My answer is in the negative.
The sum of the majority opinion is to apply to this case the abuse of discretion test of Jorn where a mistrial was granted by the court sua sponte. This is simply an incorrect approach and confuses two separate tests. Here the defendant sought the mistrial and there is no factual basis for a finding of judicial overreaching as distinguished from error amounting to an abuse of discretion. The majority does not contend otherwise but simply fashions a new doctrine of double jeopardy: the bar is applicable on the basis of error amounting to an abuse of discretion on the part of the trial court despite appellant seeking the mistrial.2 This is contrary to Jorn.
There are two unfortunate aspects to the majority opinion. First, the ratio decidendi is too extreme to be workable and will give rise to much reluctance in granting mistrials. The trial courts will understand that society will be better served by completing a trial, even after clear error has arisen and the defendant seeks the mistrial, than the alternative of a mistrial and the possible bar of double jeopardy based on the error. The time and expense involved in completing the trial, taking an appeal, and in the retrial, will often be a small price to pay to protect the societal interest in law enforcement.
Dinitz goes free but there should be little likelihood of a district court falling into a trap of the kind set here, whether set purposely or by happenstance, now that the law elucidated in the majority opinion has surfaced. Hopefully, the majority decision will thus spend itself.

. Given the view of the majority that further prosecution is barred, I do not reach defendant’s other assignments of error including whether tlie district court was in error at all in removing defendant’s co-counsel from tlie case.

. A strong argument could be made for the proposition that Mr. Wagner pursued a course of conduct calculated to cause a mistrial. Cf. McNeal v. Hollowell, supra.