Colbert v. United States

• Decision Date: 06 November 1944
• Docket Number: No. 8749.,8749.
• Citation: 79 US App. DC 261,146 F.2d 10
• Parties: COLBERT v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

79 US App. DC 261, 146 F.2d 10 (1944)

COLBERT v. UNITED STATES.

No. 8749.

United States Court of Appeals District of Columbia.

Argued October 12, 1944.

Decided November 6, 1944.

Mr. Emory B. Smith, of Washington, D. C., for appellant.

Mr. Ray L. Jenkins, Assistant United States Attorney, of Washington, D. C., with whom Messrs. Edward M. Curran, United States Attorney, and Charles B. Murray, Assistant United States Attorney, both of Washington, D. C., were on the brief for appellee. Mr. Bernard Margolius, Assistant United States Attorney, of Washington, D. C., also entered an appearance for appellee.

Before GRONER, Chief Justice, and MILLER and EDGERTON, Associate Justices.

GRONER, C. J.

This is an appeal from a conviction and sentence on a charge of pandering.¹ Appellant at the time in question was employed as bellboy in a hotel in the District of Columbia. The testimony of complaining witness and her paramour was that on the evening of October 29, 1943, they went together to the hotel, registered as husband and wife under an assumed name, were assigned a room and immediately thereafter arranged with appellant to procure men with whom the woman would have immoral relations; that as a result the latter, that same evening, had such relations with four different men, from whom she collected $20, which she at once turned over to her paramour. The latter alone testified that he paid $8.00 of the sum to appellant for his share in procuring the business. The woman testified she knew nothing of that part of the arrangement. Both testified that the following morning they left the hotel, and the same or the next afternoon registered at another, when they were arrested and lodged in jail. Some three days later they returned to the first hotel, accompanied by a police woman and two police agents, and identified appellant as the procurer. Whereupon he was arrested, indicted and convicted.

At the trial appellant denied the charge and likewise denied ever having seen either the complaining witness or her paramour until immediately before his arrest. He produced four witnesses who testified to his general reputation for truth and veracity, and for peace and good order.

On this appeal eight errors are assigned as grounds for reversal, but in the view we take of the case, it is only necessary to pass on one. It relates to the failure of the court to instruct on the weight to be given to the evidence of good character. Appellant in his prayer No. 5 asked that the court instruct the jury

"that the circumstances of a case may be such that an established reputation for good character would alone create a reasonable doubt of guilt, although without it the other evidence would be convincing." The Judge endorsed on this: "Granted in substance, denied as framed."

We agree with the court that the instruction as drawn was objectionable, — if for no other reasons, because it was a mere abstract or general statement without necessary relationship to the "circumstances" of the case then on trial, and also because it failed to include the specific admonition to consider the evidence of good character together with all the other evidence in the case. But it was easily subject to correction and this the Judge, in his verbal charge, overlooked; nor did he at any time say, directly or indirectly, anything at all as to the duty of the jury to give any weight to the evidence of good character. This we think was error. The language in which the instruction was drawn was taken from the Edgington case, Edgington v. United States, 164 U.S. 361, 366, 17 S.Ct. 72, 74, 41 L.Ed. 467, where the Supreme Court, speaking in the abstract, said:

"The circumstances may be such that an established reputation for good character, if it is relevant to the issue, would alone create a reasonable doubt, although, without it, the other evidence would be convincing."

In that case the Court was passing on an instruction given by the trial court which told the jury that evidence of good character could only be considered if the remainder...