Hobart v. United States
| Decision Date | 07 May 1924 |
| Docket Number | 3965. |
| Citation | 299 F. 784 |
| Parties | HOBART v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Herman R. Miller, of Toledo, Ohio (Denman, Kirkbride, Wilson & McCabe, of Toledo, Ohio, on the brief), for plaintiff in error.
Geo. E Reed, Asst. U.S. Atty., of Toledo, Ohio (A. E. Bernsteen U.S. Atty., of Cleveland, Ohio, and Wendell Keyser, Asst U.S. Atty., of Crestline, Ohio, on the brief), for the United States.
Before DENISON, MACK, and DONAHUE, Circuit Judges.
Hobart a physician, was convicted in the court below, of dispensing morphine in violation of the Harrison Act (38 Stat. 785 (Comp. St. Secs. 6287g-6287q)). He admitted prescribing large quantities, at frequent intervals, to a known addict. The trial was conducted throughout on the theory that the controlling question was whether Hobart was, in good faith, prescribing the morphine to a patient in an effort to effect a cure, or rather was using the form of prescription as a cover for sales. If the upholding of his conviction depended upon the due protection of his rights under this theory during the trial, we should be compelled to reverse it.
The record contains suggestions that the respondent had been before the judge upon a former occasion, wherefrom the judge had acquired good reason to believe that the respondent's alleged patient was a peddler, to whom respondent knowingly thus furnished a stock in trade. Hence it is not surprising that the judge should have felt impatient that respondent was reluctant to be convicted, and should have regarded respondent's appeal to technical rules as a rather contumacious obstruction of the course of justice; but no amount of such provocation can justify the assumption by the judge of an attitude other than impartial. Throughout the testimony and the charge the judge's belief that respondent was acting in bad faith, and that his prescription was a subterfuge, was made so evident that the jury could not fail to be constantly affected thereby.
We do not disparage the power-- and sometimes the dirty-- of the federal judge to assist the jury in reaching the right conclusion on the facts. This right, and its properly restrained exercise, strongly tend to make the federal trial courts efficient and dependable judicial machines; but the due restraint of its exercise is as important as the existence of the power. We recently pointed out instances within and others without the...
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