Court Opinion

ID: 9457837
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:34:19.795681+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:31.586640
License: Public Domain

HAMLIN, Circuit Judge
(dissenting) :
I respectfully dissent.
As the majority opinion states, a specific intent to defraud on the part of appellant must be established before appellant can be convicted of the crime charged. When the two counterfeit $10 bills were found on the appellant, he also had a “large wad” of genuine bills totaling $289.00 in his trousers pocket. The two bad bills were in the “large wad.” He was then arrested and charged with possession of counterfeit money. These charges were dismissed, the government expert testifying “the United States Attorney who made a decision evidently thought there was not enough information.”
Many months later, after appellant had testified for the defense in two state trials in which Louis Adams was charged with a narcotics offense, appellant was again charged with the present offense and brought to trial. The only additional evidence claimed against appellant was his testimony at these two trials.
In these trials appellant maintained that he had acquired the “large wad” of bills over a two or three day period playing pool, that he had discovered that the two bills were bad only an hour or so before his arrest, when he had been told by a pool player that one of the bills was counterfeit. He further said that he was told that a certain “Frisco Joe” had been passing bad bills; that he (appellant) had gone to Adams’ house to inquire where he could find Frisco Joe so he could “down the bills,” a slang expression meaning to exchange the bad bills with the person he got them from. According to his testimony, he then went with Adams to the vicinity of the pool hall, and was there told by Adams that *358the woman in the car was Frisco Joe’s lady friend. After Adams had gone over to talk to this woman, appellant heard them talking about counterfeit money. Appellant walked over to the woman to tell her that her husband had given him some bad bills.
The Government offered no evidence that the appellant at any time had attempted to pass counterfeit money to anyone, to say nothing of the fact that it had offered no proof that he had attempted to pass counterfeit money with knowledge that it was counterfeit.
To convict the appellant, the evidence must be sufficient to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that appellant possessed the counterfeit bills with intent to defraud. To me, the record contains no such proof.
I would reverse the judgment.