WALKER v. UNITED STATES
No. 10862
Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit
Jan. 4, 1938
93 F.2d 792
SANBORN, Circuit Judge, dissenting.
See, also, United States v. Buck, 18 F. Supp. 213; Id., 18 F.Supp. 827; U. S. v. Walker, 19 F.Supp. 969.
I. J. Ringolsky, William G. Boatright, Harry L. Jacobs, Ludwick Graves, James Daleo, Ringolsky, Boatright & Jacobs, and Johnson, Lucas, Landon, Graves & Fane, all of Kansas City, Mo., for appellant.
Maurice M. Milligan, U. S. Atty., Randall Wilson, Sam C. Blair, Thomas A. Costolow, and Richard K. Phelps, Asst. U. S. Attys., all of Kansas City, Mo.
Before GARDNER, SANBORN, and THOMAS, Circuit Judges.
THOMAS, Circuit Judge.
Upon the second count of an indictment charging appellant with violation of
The second count of the indictment upon which appellant was convicted charges: “And the grand jurors aforesaid, upon their oaths aforesaid, do further present and charge that on or about the 10th day of January, 1937, at Kansas City, Jackson County, Missouri, * * * one Edson M. Walker, with a corrupt intent, wilfully, unlawfully, knowingly and corruptly then and there did endeavor to influence one Chloe G. Albright, who was then and there a witness in a certain criminal case then pending in the District Court of the United States in and for the Western District of Missouri, entitled United States of America v. Edson M. Walker, Miss Loretta McEntee, Mrs. Anna V. O‘Laughlin, Mrs. Chloe G. Albright, Elijah Burke, Mrs. Tessie Mears, and John H. Drummond, wherein the persons last aforesaid were charged by an indictment duly and legally returned by the grand jury of the District Court of the United States in and for the Western District of Missouri, with a violation of
It will be observed that appellant Walker and Chloe G. Albright, whom it is charged appellant corruptly endeavored to influence, were codefendants in case No. 13648, referred to in the indictment. That case was one of several involving certain alleged election frauds at the November, 1936, election in Kansas City, Mo. The defendants were election officials in one of the voting precincts in that city, and the indictment charged among other things that they did not count the ballots and make a correct return of the results, but instead certified to a false return to the Board of Election Commissioners. Their conduct had been under investigation by the grand jury for some time, when on the evening of January 9, 1937, the newspapers reported that an indictment had been returned, charging all the defendants with violation of
Upon the trial of the present case, Chloe G. Albright was the principal witness for the government. She testified in essential part as follows:
“I next saw Defendant Walker the evening of January 9, which was a Saturday, at my home, 6423 East 13th Street, Kansas City, Missouri. He came to my house. I had a conversation with him, a few words.
“Q. What did he say to you? A. He came in and he says ‘Have you saw the paper, tonight‘s paper?’ I said ‘No, I haven‘t.’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we are all indicted.’ I said ‘What do you mean, we are all indicted?’ ‘Well,’ he said, ‘we are all indicted in the election, over the election,’ and I yet said ‘What do you mean that we are indicted.’ ‘Well,’ he said ‘We have got to go down and post bond, give bond,’ and I said, ‘When?’ and he did not make any definite statement as to when, and he said to me, ‘Has the Government men been out to see you?’ I said ‘They have.’ He said ‘What did you tell him. I said ‘I told them just exactly what happened election day. He said ‘You told him the ballots were not counted?’ ‘Yes, sir,’ I said ‘I told them they were not counted.’ Well, he said ‘If it ever comes up to trial or court you deny it.’ Well, I said ‘I can‘t, I done told it and I am going to stick by it, there is nothing else I can do but tell the truth.’ He said ‘Did you sign anything?’ I said ‘No, sir.’ I first told him it would be perjury if I changed my statement and I knew it. He said ‘Did you sign something?’ and I said ‘No, sir,’ as he said ‘It isn‘t perjury unless it is a sworn statement, signed’ and I
“Q. Now, with reference to this statement he made about your testimony did he make any reference to where this testimony was to be given or anything as to where it was to be, where this testimony was to be? A. He said to court. Of course I knew in my own mind it would be the grand jury. * * *
“I next saw Defendant Walker the next evening, which was Sunday evening, at my home. * * *
“Well, he still said he wanted me to change my story, he wanted my story like they wanted me to tell it, not as I told the Government man at all. * * *
“I said to him ‘Well, Walker, I can‘t change my story, it is still perjury and I know it and I can‘t change my story at all.’ Well, he said ‘There isn‘t nothing to fear,’ he says ‘If you go ahead and tell as we want you to tell,’ he says ‘There is nothing for you to fear.’ * * *
“I asked him, I said ‘Just what would happen if I go ahead and tell the truth of what happened down there, what will happen‘. He said, ‘oh, nothing will happen in preference only we all will ignore you’ and I didn‘t ask him who ‘we all’ were. * * *
“As he started out the door he said ‘now, we all want to get the same story‘, he said ‘we all want to tell the same story if it comes to court we want to get together and get the same story and you girls,’ meaning myself for one, he said ‘abide by the way we do, we want you to, and everything will be all right.‘”
Upon this evidence, corroborated by the testimony of other witnesses, the verdict and judgment appealed from rest.
Four propositions are relied upon to secure a reversal: (1) The insufficiency of the indictment, in that its allegations are vague and indefinite; (2) the petit jury was not properly selected; (3) a motion for a directed verdict should have been sustained for insufficiency of evidence; and (4) the court‘s charge to the jury was erroneous, argumentative, and prejudicial.
The first ground of appeal, that the indictment is vague and indefinite, is without merit. Appellant does not contend that the statement of the elements of the offense is lacking; but he argues that the allegations are so indefinite that they do not sufficiently apprise him and the court of the nature of the offense so as to relieve him of the danger of a second prosecution for the same acts. A reading of the indictment should be sufficient to dispose of this criticism. This case is unlike the cases relied upon by appellant. He cites United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U.S. 542, 23 L.Ed. 588, where the defendants were charged with conspiring “to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate citizens” without any statement of what those acts of oppression were; United States v. Hess, 124 U.S. 483, 485, 8 S.Ct. 571, 573, 31 L.Ed. 516, in which the defendant was charged with “having devised a scheme to defraud” without any statement of what the scheme was; and Fontana v. United States, 8 Cir., 262 F. 283, where a defendant was accused under the Espionage Act,
The second contention on appeal is a challenge to the petit jury panel on the ground that the names included therein were not lawfully selected. The facts in connection with this point and the legal propositions involved are identical with the facts and contentions in Walker et al. v. United States, 8 Cir., 93 F.2d 383, decided at this term, as well as in several other cases known as the Kansas City, Mo., election cases. This case upon this point is governed by the same principles of law and is controlled by the decisions in those cases. The alleged errors cannot be sustained.
The third ground upon which appellant seeks a reversal of the judgment against him must be sustained. It is that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict.
To show that Mrs. Albright entertained an intent in January, 1937, to testify, counsel for appellee must and do rely upon her conversations with appellant. We find no circumstance disclosed in the evidence of those conversations to support an inference of intent. In the case of Smith v. United States, 8 Cir., 274 F. 351, supra, the witness, Bohannon, whom the defendant had endeavored to intimidate, had testified under subpoena, had been paid his fee, had been discharged, had been called to testify again by a telegram from one of the attorneys who had originally subpoenaed him, and had returned in response to the telegram, when the defendant accosted him within two blocks of the courthouse, accused him of having testified falsely, and knocked him down. No corresponding circumstances are found in the evidence in this case.
Second, the burden was upon the government not only to prove that Chloe G. Albright was or intended to be a witness at the time of the conversations in evidence, but, also, that the appellant then and there had knowledge or notice or information of that fact, and that it was because of such status that appellant corruptly endeavored to influence her. Pettibone v. United States, 148 U.S. 197, 13 S.Ct. 542, 37 L.Ed. 419; Smith v. United States, supra; Kloss v. United States, 8 Cir., 77 F.2d 462, 464. It was held in the Kloss Case, supra, that the proof of knowledge is sufficient when it shows that the accused had “reasonable grounds to believe” that the person sought to be influenced is a witness. There is no evidence that Walker knew on January 9 and 10 that she was or intended to be a witness. The only evidence of what appellant knew or had reason to believe about Mrs. Albright‘s intentions at that time is what she told him. Nothing that she told him indicated that she intended to waive her immunity by requesting permission to testify, or even to enter a plea of nolo contendere, or to ask for a severance. The only references to trials or courts in the conversations were made by appellant.
It may be observed that it is not a crime under
Since there is no evidence in the record to support either element of the bur-
In the last five specifications of error appellant assails particular portions of the court‘s charge to the jury, and the charge as a whole, as unfair to appellant and argumentative. No exceptions were taken to the rules of law embodied in the instructions. We have read and considered the instructions in the light of appellant‘s criticisms, and we find no reversible error in them. Appellant relies upon the case of Quercia v. United States, 289 U.S. 466, 53 S.Ct. 698, 77 L.Ed. 1321, to sustain his contentions. The conviction was reversed in that case because the trial court in his charge to the jury said of the defendant‘s testimony: “I think that every single word that man said, except when he agreed with the government‘s testimony, was a lie.” Nothing said by the court in his charge in the instant case was comparable to such language.
For the reason that the evidence is insufficient to support the verdict the judgment is reversed and the case remanded with instructions to grant a new trial.
Reversed.
SANBORN, Circuit Judge (dissenting).
If I had presided at the trial of this case I would not have directed a verdict in favor of Walker, the appellant, on the ground that there was no evidence that he knew or had reasonable grounds to believe that Mrs. Albright was and intended to be a witness in the case of United States v. Walker, Albright, and others, D.C. No. 13648, upon the trial of which she subsequently testified as a witness for the government. The conversation which Walker had with Mrs. Albright after the return of the indictment in that case, as she relates that conversation, indicates that the only purpose which Walker could have had was to persuade her to testify falsely upon the trial. He was told by her that she had given to the prosecution a statement of facts which tended to establish the existence of the conspiracy charged in that indictment. He knew that she was a person who could testify against him and the other defendants, including herself, although she could not be compelled to testify. He knew that she in her statement had virtually admitted her own guilt of the charges made, and had thereby indicated her willingness to tell the truth. He knew, or at least had reasonable grounds to believe, that she would have nothing to lose and everything to gain by testifying for the government and telling the truth. That Walker attempted to induce her to testify falsely in court is shown by the following question asked her by Walker‘s counsel upon cross-examination and by her answer thereto: “Q. Now, so we will have it clearly, you testify this morning that he told you to, in court, say that this statement that you had made to the Government man was not true? A. Yes, sir.”
Why should Walker, if he did not know and had no reason to believe that Mrs. Albright intended to be a witness, take the trouble to tell her what to testify to in court?
The purpose of
The rule that a penal statute is to be strictly construed in favor of a person accused is not violated by allowing the language of the statute to have its full meaning where that construction supports the policy and purposes of the enactment. Wilson v. United States, 8 Cir., 77 F.2d 236 (certiorari denied, 295 U.S. 759, 55 S.Ct. 926, 79 L.Ed. 1701) and cases cited. In Smith v. United States, 8 Cir., 274 F. 351, 353, this court, speaking of
I concede, of course, that a defendant in preparing his defense in a criminal case is at perfect liberty to interview and consult with all of his codefendants and with all material witnesses, whether they are friendly or hostile to him. He may not, however, in my judgment, attempt to influence, by threats or otherwise, any witness, whether a codefendant or not, to testify falsely upon a trial, without violating both the spirit and the language of the statute under consideration.
I am convinced that if the jury believed Mrs. Albright‘s testimony as to her conversation with Walker, it was justified in finding that he had reasonable grounds to believe and did believe, at the time he talked to her, that she intended to be, expected to be, and was prompted by self-interest to be, a witness against him and his codefendants. I am therefore of the opinion that the trial court could not have directed a verdict for Walker, but was obliged to submit the case to the jury for its determination, and that that determination is binding upon this court. I think the judgment should be affirmed.
GOLDMAN v. POLAN et al.
No. 4205
Circuit Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit
Jan. 4, 1938
Samuel W. Banning, of Chicago, Ill. (Ephraim Banning, of Chicago, Ill., and Thomas W. Y. Clark, of Baltimore, Md., on the brief), for appellant.
A. Harry Crowell, of Washington, D. C., and Simon E. Sobeloff, of Baltimore, Md. (George P. Kimmel, of Washington, D. C., on the brief), for appellees.
Before PARKER, NORTHCOTT, and SOPER, Circuit Judges.
PARKER, Circuit Judge.
This is an appeal in a patent infringement suit involving Goldman patent, No. 2,039,987, for an umbrella. The defenses were lack of invention, anticipation, and prior use. The court below held the patent invalid on all three grounds, and the plaintiff has appealed. Plaintiff does not contend that there is any novelty in the construction or framework of his umbrella nor does he claim invention with respect to the fabric with which it is covered. His contention is that the combination of the fabric which he uses with the frame of the ordinary umbrella or parasol has resulted in the production of a new and useful article which is patentable. The fabric used is Habutaye silk processed with an oil coating so as to be waterproof and semitransparent. The patent contains two claims which are substantially the same, the second being as follows:
“In an umbrella having radial ribs, a covering therefor made up of triangular sections of material each having a base extending between the tips of adjacent ribs and connected by seams with adjacent sections substantially in line with the ribs, the covering being formed of a textile material in whose structure are comprised two sets