Fletcher v. United States, 9243.

• Decision Date: 12 November 1946
• Docket Number: No. 9243.,9243.
• Parties: FLETCHER v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — District of Columbia Circuit

81 US App. DC 306, 158 F.2d 321 (1946)

FLETCHER v. UNITED STATES.

No. 9243.

United States Court of Appeals, District of Columbia.

Argued October 7, 1946.

Decided November 12, 1946.

Mr. Curtis P. Mitchell, of Washington, D. C., for appellant.

Mr. Sidney S. Sachs, Assistant United States Attorney, of Washington, D. C. with whom Mr. Edward M. Curran, United States Attorney, of Washington, D. C., was on the brief for appellee. Mr. Stephen C. Miller, Assistant United States Attorney, of Washington, D. C., also entered an appearance for appellee.

Before GRONER, Chief Justice, and WILBUR K. MILLER and PRETTYMAN, Associate Justices.

GRONER, C. J.

Appellant was indicted, convicted and sentenced under four counts for the unlawful sale of narcotics in the District of Columbia.¹ The evidence to sustain the charge was given by an informer (or as he is sometimes called, a stool pigeon), himself an addict, who testified that on May 12th, 18th, 23rd and June 2nd, 1945, he went alone to a room in a house numbered 1122 Ninth Street, in the City of Washington, and on each of the respective dates purchased from appellant, for $6, a package containing a small amount of heroin.

In the view we take of the case the single question for decision is whether the trial court erred in refusing a requested instruction to the effect that the informer's testimony should be examined by the jury with greater scrutiny and care than the testimony of an ordinary witness. We are of opinion that in the facts of this case the request was a proper one and the refusal of the court to so instruct the jury was prejudicial error, which requires us to reverse the conviction.

An examination of the evidence at the trial shows that the only testimony given to connect appellant with the crimes charged was that of the informer. The narcotic agent who employed him at $6 a day to "turn up" cases involving violations of the narcotic law never saw appellant nor witnessed any one of the alleged transactions. On the first occasion the agent accompanied the witness to the neighborhood of a house numbered 307 L Street, in the City of Washington, where apparently the informer expected to find appellant, but not finding him, the informer, without notice to the agent, took a taxicab and drove to the Ninth Street address. He went to the second floor, knocked on a door which was opened by appellant, made the purchase and then went to his own home, and did not see the agent again until the following day, when he delivered to him an envelope, the contents of which he claimed to have purchased from appellant.

The second transaction was more or less of the same order. The informer and agent walked to the neighborhood of Ninth Street; the informer went alone into the house and up to the second floor, made the purchase, and returned to 11th and L Streets, — some distance away — where he delivered the package to the agent, who was there waiting for him in his automobile. Although the agent testified that he watched the informer as he entered the apartment house and after he emerged, nobody who testified saw where he went, whom he met or what he did while he was in the house. The circumstances of the third and fourth transactions were in all essential respects of the same pattern. There was at no time any search of the premises, the warrant to arrest appellant was...