Court Opinion

ID: 9469175
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 02:34:17.17036+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:41:16.042219
License: Public Domain

*1017HARRISON L. WINTER, Chief Judge,
dissenting:
When read as a whole, * I do not think that the instructions of the district court removed from the jury the question of whether this defendant had sole access to the moneys allegedly embezzled. I respectfully dissent from the majority’s contrary conclusion.
I.
The theory of the prosecution in this case was that defendant, admittedly employed as a bank teller on the days in question, received a deposit of a $5,000 cashier’s check from a certain Evelyn Vines, and three days later a deposit of a $6,000 check from a certain Eileen Perez. In each instance there was evidence that defendant falsified bank records to show that the checks were cashed rather than deposited and that she converted the proceeds to her own use. Each depositor was given a receipt showing that the cheeks were deposited to her account, and the bank honored the receipts when the depositors’ accounts were allegedly overdrawn. Neither depositor could identify the teller who handled her transaction — one thought that the teller was female, the other thought that the teller was male. However, the bank’s records, i.e., the fraudulent cash slips and the fraudulent settlement sheets, bore the signature of defendant.
II.
In instructing the jury, the district court repeatedly stressed that the burden was on the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt all elements of the crime and that a defendant never had the burden or duty of calling any witnesses or producing any evidence. The district court explained the theory of the prosecution and then gave the instruction which the majority concludes was reversible error:
Now, as applied to this ease, the Court tells you that both the criminal intent and the actual taking of the money by the defendant may be proved by circumstantial evidence in an embezzlement and where the defendant alone has access to the property and that is in this case, money in the cash drawer and a dollar shortage is disclosed and no explanation of the shortage is tendered by the accused you may, but you do not have to reasonably infer from the circumstances that the custodian of the property embezzled the missing funds. Now, it does not require you to do so but you might infer from the circumstances, but you are the sole judges of the facts, (emphasis added)
In my view, the phrase “that is in this case” was meant only to mean that there was circumstantial evidence that defendant alone had access to the property but not to foreclose the jury’s finding as to who had sole possession. Had the district court intended to foreclose the issue, the word “in” was superfluous. My interpretation is reinforced by the fact that in practically the next breath, the court told the jury, “the evidence in this case raises a question for you to determine whether the defendant was, in fact, the criminal actor,” and then called attention to the fact that there was no positive identification testimony, adding:
However, bear in mind the burden is on the Government not only to show the essential elements of this case, not only to show there was a falsification of checks marked as cash instead of deposit and a shortage in the drawer in the days in question equal to the amount of the check, they must satisfy you beyond a *1018reasonable doubt that this defendant is the one who was solely in possession of that drawer all day, yes, and that she was the one who received the deposits and she is the one who made out and signed these things. In other words, since there has not been an identification, the burden is on the Government as I say before you can draw an inference from the circumstances or anything, (emphasis added)
Manifestly, a jury explicitly told that its function was to find whether a defendant was solely in possession in order to convict could not reasonably understand that that factual issue was foreclosed.
I think that the factual issue of whether or not there was sole possession from which the permissible inference could be drawn was fairly put to the jury. Since I find no merit in defendant’s other contentions, I would affirm the judgment entered on her conviction.

 It is horn book law that this is the rule to be applied. See United States v. Park, 421 U.S. 658, 674, 95 S.Ct. 1903, 1912, 44 L.Ed.2d 489 (1975); Reeves v. Read, 596 F.2d 628, 629 (4 Cir. 1979).