Filippelli v. United States

6 F.2d 121, 1925 U.S. App. LEXIS 1966
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedMay 25, 1925
Docket4368
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 6 F.2d 121 (Filippelli v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Filippelli v. United States, 6 F.2d 121, 1925 U.S. App. LEXIS 1966 (9th Cir. 1925).

Opinion

RUDKIN, Circuit Judge

(after stating the facts as above). We will now take up the different assignments of error in the order in which they are discussed in the briefs. In our opinion, it was error on the part of the trial court to permit the attorney for the government to criticize a juror and impugn his motives, in the presence of other jurors, because of his verdict in another ease, under the pretense of inquiring into the state of his mind, and to follow this up by excusing the juror for cause. Of course, no error can be predicated on the ruling sustaining a challenge for cause; but it none the less appears from the record that the verdict in the former case was the sole basis for the challenge. Somewhat similar *124 situations arose in the following cases: Wolf v. United States (C. C. A.) 292 F. 673; Hindman v. United States (C. C. A.) 292 F. 679; Boyles v. United States (C. C. A.) 295 F. 126; McLendon v. United States (C. C. A.) 2 F.(2d) 660.

The facts in the Wolf Case are thus stated in a. footnote to the opinion: “The gist of the asserted Mahannah incident is that, the court having learned by its own inquiry that the jury stood eleven to one for conviction, and Mahannah, in answer to further inquiry, having said he had favored acquittal, was immediately dismissed from the panel and from further jury service.” In discussing the incident the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit said:

“The court had a perfect right to discharge the juror Mahannah,' if thought to be an unfit juror; but the discharge should not be made in such way as to indicate that it was a rebuke for failure to convict. It does not appear by proof whether such dismissal was publicly had and in open court, and under such circumstances as naturally to indicate to the jurors in attendance that the discharge was made merely because the juror voted for acquittal in a ease where the verdict depended upon the credit to be given the testimony of the respective" witnesses. If the discharge was so made, and in the presence or within the presumed knowledge of jurors upon the panel which tried plaintiff in error, its effect upon the whole panel would plainly have been such that no other case involving the issue of Taylor’s credibility ought to have been tried by that panel.”

The Wolf, Hindman, and Boyles Cases all grew out of the same transactions and involved substantially the same parties, but not so in the McLendon Case. In the latter case the court said:

“There must be a new trial; but there is another matter of great importance, and which alone would require reversal. After the case had been on trial several days, illness and death came to the family of a juror, and without objection this case was held over four or five days, and the 11 jurors in this ease participated as they were called as jurors in the trial of other cases. No objection was made at the time to this course; but, after this jury had reconvened, and the trial had been finished and the jury charged, it remained out for parts of two days, and came back into court two or three times for further instructions. During this time a jury which had been trying a ease for the unlawful sale of liquor reported that it was unable to agree. That jury had been instructed that upon the testimony of the defendant himself given in that case he was guilty, and it was their duty to return a verdict of guilty. When the jury reported its disagreement, the judge asked those jurors who were refusing to convict to arise. Six did so. Thereupon they were publicly discharged from the jury panel and the clerk was publicly instructed to see that their names were not drawn upon subsequent juries. This was for the reason, then stated in open court by the judge, that it. was their legal duty to decide the ease according to the evidence as produced and according to the law as given to them by the judge; that, in refusing to follow the instructions of the judge as to the verdict, these jurors had contumaciously refused to-do their plain duty; and that the government ought not to continue to expend its titue and money trying cases before jurors who would not be governed by the instructions of the court as to the law. * '* *
“In view of what was said in our two former opinions just cited, and the fact that the trial of this case occurred before we had thus expressed disapproval of this practice,, we refrain from extended comment. The ever-present possibility that the judge may be in error as to the indisputable effect of the evidence and the inevitable tendency to-let the jurors of the panel understand that they will be punished — though not by fine or imprisonment — if they do not agree with the judge as to the tendency of the evidence, must necessitate an immediate discharge of1 the entire panel whenever such an incident occurs, lest every later ease at that term be-subject to condemnation as a mistrial.”

Here the court itself took no action, but the attorney for the government was permitted to act by its sanction and under its-protection. The juror addressed and all' other jurors were given plainly to understand that they might be punished, not by fine or imprisonment, it is. true, but by public castigation at the hands of the public prosecutor, in the presence of their fellows and of the public under the protection of the court, if their view of the testimony in á given ease did not coincide with, the views of the court and the public prosecutor.

In this connection it must be remembered that there .is a great sameness in the witnesses and testimony in this- class of cases. On the one side are government agents; on the other side, the defendant or defendants. In some eases there may be corroboration,, *125 but usually there is none; and if the jurors are to be publicly criticized, with the sanction and under the protection o£ the court, for returning a verdict of not guilty in one case, how can they expect to escape the like criticism if they return a like verdict in another case of the same general character, even though their conscience tells them that the government has failed in its proof. It is needless to say that, if such a course of conduct is permitted, timid jurors will be influenced, and all jurors will be embarrassed in the discharge of the important public duties imposed upon them by law; The policy of criticizing a jury for their verdict in any case is of doubtful propriety, to say the least. As said by the court in one of the eases just cited, there is always the ever-present possibility that the jury may be right, and that the judge or public prosecutor may be wrong. Both judges and jurors are human; judges as well as jurors make mistakes; if they did not, we would have or know no jury system.’

We see no defect of form or substance in the first search warrant, or in the affidavit upon which it was based; but, in our opinion, the second search warrant was unauthorized and illegal. The object of a search warrant under the Espionage Act (Comp. St. 1918, Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1919, §§ 10496%a-10496%v) and the National Prohibition Act (Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1923, § 10138% et seq.) is to search for and seize property used as a means for committing a crime, and when that purpose has been accomplished no further search is authorized for causes existing prior to the time of search.

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Bluebook (online)
6 F.2d 121, 1925 U.S. App. LEXIS 1966, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/filippelli-v-united-states-ca9-1925.