Richard A. Mack v. United States of America, Thurman A. Whiteside v. United States

274 F.2d 582

• Court: Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit
• Decided: December 7, 1959
• Docket: 15322, 15323
• Status: Published

Opinions

PER CURIAM.

These are motions to docket and dismiss, filed by the Government. The cases were tried to a jury, motions for judgments of acquittal were made, the judge reserved decision, the jury disagreed and was discharged, and the judge thereafter denied the motions. The defendants appealed from the denials.

The Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, in Gilmore v. United States,¹ considered and disposed of most of the points raised here by the appellants. We agree with the opinion in that case and adopt it here.²

Another point raised by appellants concerns the applicability of Stack v. Boyle.³ That case involved a motion to reduce bail pending trial. The Court held denial of the motion to be a final decision within the statute governing the right to appeal.⁴ The considerations applicable to such a motion concerning bail, which led to the conclusion of the Court, are inapplicable here. The rights to bail and to freedom from excessive bail are obviously different from whatever rights a defendant may have to a judgment of acquittal after the evidence is in upon a trial by jury. Moreover the question of bail and the proceedings in respect to it are not part of the trial, a unitary proceeding of which the final decision is a judgment,⁵ but are separate and independent from the questions and the proceedings of the trial. The difference between the questions is made amply clear by the opinions of the Justices in Stack v. Boyle, supra.

Appellants would have us read Rule 29(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, 18 U.S.C.A., as denying to a trial court the power to order a new trial where the judge reserves decision on a motion for judgment of acquittal, the jury thereafter disagrees, and the court then denies the motion. The last sentence of the Rule is: “If no verdict is returned the court may order a new trial or enter judgment of acquittal.” We read that sentence as it is written. It is not limited to a situation wherein the court has denied, rather than reserved decision on, the motion before submitting the case to the jury.

To read Rule 29(b) as appellants would have us read it would make a mistrial due to a disagreement of the jury, where the judge has reserved decision upon a motion for acquittal, equivalent to an acquittal. We think the Rule was not so intended and cannot be so read.⁶

Appellants urge the burden of a retrial as a determinative factor. But many rulings of a trial judge during the course of a trial result in similar burdens. Appellate courts are bound by the rule of finality.⁷ We think the denials of the motions for judgments of acquittal were not final decisions within the meaning of the statute.

Appeals dismissed.

1 . 264 F.2d 44, certiorari denied 359 U.S. 994, 79 S.Ct. 1126, 3 L.Ed.2d 982 (1959).

2 . See also United States v. Swidler, 3 Cir., 207 F.2d 47, certiorari denied, 346 U.S. 915, 74 S.Ct. 274, 98 L.Ed. 411 (1953).

3 . 342 U.S. 1, 72 S.Ct. 1, 96 L.Ed. 3 (1951).

4 . 28 U.S.C. § 129L

5 . See Berman v. United States, 302 U.S. 211, 212-213, 58 S.Ct. 164, 82 L.Ed. 204 (1937); Parr v. United States, 351 U.S. 513, 76 S.Ct. 912, 100 L.Ed. 1377 (1956).

6 . Cf. Bryan v. United States, 338 U.S. 552, 70 S.Ct. 317, 94 L.Ed. 335 (1950).

7 . Supra note 4.