Manuel Menendez, Thelma Dasher Menendez, Aristedes Menendez v. United States

393 F.2d 312
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedMay 8, 1968
Docket25163
StatusPublished
Cited by34 cases

This text of 393 F.2d 312 (Manuel Menendez, Thelma Dasher Menendez, Aristedes Menendez v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Manuel Menendez, Thelma Dasher Menendez, Aristedes Menendez v. United States, 393 F.2d 312 (5th Cir. 1968).

Opinion

CHOATE, Senior District Judge:

The three defendants, Manuel and Thelma Dasher Menendez (Manuel's wife) and Aristedes Menendez (Manuel’s brother), were convicted of violations under 18 U.S.C. § 1952. 1 The specific allegations were that on various dates the defendants did knowingly use a facility of interstate commerce (the long distance telephone) 2 between New York and Jacksonville to aid, promote and manage a lottery, said lottery being in violation of the laws of Florida (Fla. Stat. § 849.09, F.S.A.).

The points raised on appeal involve: the trial court’s refusal to give protective instructions as to the use of Aris-tedes’s extra-judicial statement, which contained references to the other two defendants, and the court’s failure to order a severance in view of the statement; the court’s instructions as to the elements of the crime; the production of FBI interview reports under the Jencks Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3500; the production of grand jury testimony; the admissibility of Aristedes’s statements under the Miranda rule; the court’s denial, in part, of defendants’ motions for a bill of particulars and other discovery.

This court affirms the trial court as to the conviction of Aristedes, and reverses as to the convictions of Manuel and Thelma. The reversal is because the court failed to take protective measures to assure that Aristedes’s statement would not be considered by the jury in connection with the guilt or innocence of Manuel and Thelma.

The basic evidence produced by the government was as follows:

Several lotteries, including one known as “totals,” existed in the Jacksonville area in 1964 and 1965. The winning number for totals is the last two digits of the combined total liabilities of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks as of the close of business each Wednesday. There is but one winning number weekly, which is available around 4 p. m. each Thursday. The number, released by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, did not reach Jacksonville through the newspapers until Saturday, or through the Jacksonville Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta until Friday or Monday of each week.

A witness from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York testified that each Thursday about 4 p. m. a person identifying himself as Menendez would call to *315 obtain the combined liabilities of the banks.

In order to show the use of an interstate facility, the government produced records of the New York and Jacksonville telephone companies showing a series of calls on Thursdays around 4 p. m. from a telephone number registered to Aristedes Menendez in New York to a telephone number registered to Manuel and Thelma Menendez in Jacksonville.

The key government witness was an accomplice, Aristedes’s son-in-law (who did some of the phoning himself at Aris-tedes’s request). He testified to calls made by Aristedes in New York to Manuel and Thelma in Jacksonville to relay the lottery number.

Thelma’s son said he was a pickup man for the lottery, hired by his mother. Other relatives and friends testified concerning the Jacksonville end of the operation and Manuel’s and Thelma’s involvement therein.

Extra-Judicial Statements of One Defendant Involving Co-Defendant—

Aristedes in New York had spoken with FBI agents in October 1965. When his written, unsigned statement was offered as evidence, defense counsel pointed out that it contained references to the co-defendants Manuel and Thelma and to their activities in requesting and receiving the totals numbers. Neither of them had been present when Aris-tedes had narrated the statement to the agents. The defense asked the trial court to instruct the jury that the statement was inadmissible as to Manuel and Thelma, or in the alternative, to strike or delete their names from the statement. The court refused these requests. No instruction limiting the consideration of the statement was given in the final charge to the jury.

It is well established that a confession made by one defendant implicating a co-defendant who was not present when the confession was made is inadmissible as to the latter. Any such statement is hearsay as to the non-declarant. Further, the non-declarant is helpless to subject the maker of the statement to cross-examination, unless the declarant voluntarily takes the witness stand, which Aristedes did not do in this case. Barton v. United States, 263 F.2d 894 (5th Cir. 1959).

Where that type of statement is admitted into evidence, the court must effectively instruct the jury at once, and not wait until the conclusion of the case, that the confession must be disregarded as evidence against the co-defendant. 3

The Supreme Court stated the rule, in terms of co-conspirators, as follows:

“This Court long has held that a declaration made by one conspirator, in furtherance of a conspiracy and prior to its termination, may be used against the other conspirators. However, when such a declaration is made by a conspirator after the termination of the conspiracy, it may be used only against the declarant and under appropriate instructions to the jury.” Delli Paoli v. United States, 352 U.S. 232, 237, 77 S.Ct. 294, 297, 1 L.Ed.2d 278 (1957).

Here, where no conspiracy was charged, it was prejudicial error to admit the statement of Aristedes, in which Manuel and Thelma were mentioned, without immediate cautionary instructions to the jury.

No prejudicial error has been shown as to the other points on appeal as they relate to Aristedes. Nevertheless, in view of the re-trial necessary for Manuel *316 and Thelma, they will be discussed briefly. '

Court’s Instructions—

Defendants contend that the court erred in not instructing the jury that the government must prove that a particular type of lottery, a “totals” lottery, existed in the Jacksonville area. It is to be recalled that the charge was using the telephone in the commission of a State offense. The court did sufficiently define the offense, namely, the carrying on of a numbers lottery, in violation of Fla.Stat. § 849.09, F.S.A. Moreover, the defendants never requested an instruction that the existence of a particularly named numbers lottery was an element of the crime charged. If there was error, it would not have constituted plain error under Rules 30 and 52(b), Fed.R.Crim.P.

Production of FBI Interview Reports under Jeneks Act—

It was established that in interviewing the witnesses the FBI agent had made notes or memoranda.

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Bluebook (online)
393 F.2d 312, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/manuel-menendez-thelma-dasher-menendez-aristedes-menendez-v-united-ca5-1968.