Kotteakos v. United States Regenboge v. Same

• Decision Date: 10 June 1946
• Docket Number: 458,Nos. 457,s. 457
• Parties: KOTTEAKOS et al. v. UNITED STATES. REGENBOGE v. SAME
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

328 U.S. 750

66 S.Ct. 1239

90 L.Ed. 1557

KOTTEAKOS et al.

v UNITED STATES. REGENBOGE

v. SAME.

Nos. 457, 458.

Argued Feb. 28, 1946.

Decided June 10, 1946.

Mr. Henry G. Singer, of Brooklyn, N.Y., for petitioners.

Mr. W. Marvin Smith, of Washington, D.C., for respondent.

[Argument of Counsel from page 751 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice RUTLEDGE delivered the opinion of the Court.

The only question is whether petitioners have suffered substantial prejudice from being convicted of a single general conspiracy by evidence which the Government admits proved not one conspiracy but some eight or more different ones of the same sort executed through a common key figure, Simon Brown. Petitioners were convicted under the general conspiracy section of the Criminal Code, 18 U.S.C. § 88, 18 U.S.C.A. § 88, of conspiring to violate the provisions of the National Housing Act, 12 U.S.C. §§ 1702, 1703, 1715, 1731, 12 U.S.C.A. § 1702, 1703, 1715, 1731. The judgments were affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals. 151 F.2d 170. We granted certiorari because of the importance of the question for the administration of criminal justice in the federal courts. 326 U.S. 711, 66 S.Ct. 169.

The indictment named thirty-two defendants, including the petitioners.¹ The gist of the conspiracy, as alleged, was that the defendants had sought to induce various financial institutions to grant credit, with the intent that the loans or advances would then be offered to the Federal Housing Administration for insurance upon applications containing false and fraudulent information. ²

Of the thirty-two persons named in the indictment nineteen were brought to trial³ and the names of thirteen were submitted to the jury.⁴ Two were acquitted; the jury disagreed as to four; and the remaining seven, including petitioners, were found guilty.

The Government's evidence may be summarized briefly, for the petitioners have not contended that it was insufficient, if considered apart from the alleged errors relating to the proof and the instructions at the trial.

Simon Brown, who pleaded guilty, was the common and key figure in all of the transactions proven. He was president of the Brownie Lumber Company. Having had experience in obtaining loans under the National Housing Act, he undertook to act as broker in placing for oh ers loans for modernization and renovation, charging a five per cent commission for his services. Brown knew, when he obtained the loans, that the proceeds were not to be used for the purposes stated in the applications.

In May, 1939, petitioner Lekacos told Brown that he wished to secure a loan in order to finance opening a law office, to say the least a hardly auspicious professional launching. Brown made out the application, as directed by Lekacos, to state that the purpose of the loan was to modernize a house belonging to the estate of Lekacos' father. Lekacos obtained the money. Later in the same year Lekacos secured another loan through Brown, the application being in the names of his brother and sister- in-law. Lekacos also received part of the proceeds of a loan for which one Gerakeris, a defendant who pleaded guilty, had applied.

In June, 1939, Lekacos sent Brown an application for a loan signed by petitioner Kotteakos. It contained false statements.⁵ Brown placed the loan, and Kotteakos thereafter sent Brown applications on behalf of other persons. Two were made out in the names of fictitious persons. The proceeds were received by Kotteakos and petitioner Regenbogen, his partner in the cigarette and pinball machine business. Regenbogen, together with Kotteakos, had indorsed one of the applications. Kotteakos also sent to Brown an application for a loan in Regenbogen's name. This was for modernization of property not owned by Regenbogen. The latter, however, repaid the money in about three months after he received it.

The evidence against the other defendants whose cases were submitted to the jury was similar in character. They too had transacted business with Brown relating to National Housing Act loans. But no connection was shown between them and petitioners, other than that Brown had been the instrument in each instance for obtaining the loans. In many cases the other defendants did not have any relationship with one another, other than Brown's connection with each transaction. As the Circuit Court of Appeals said, there were 'at least eight, and perhaps more, separate and independent groups, none of which had any connection with any other, though all dealt independently with Brown as their agent.' 151 F.2d at page 172. As the Government puts it, the pattern was 'that of separate spokes meeting at a common center,' though we may add without the rim of the wheel to enclose the spokes.

The proof therefore admittedly made out a case, not of a single conspiracy, but of several, notwithstanding only one was charged in the indictment. Cf. United States v. Falcone, 311 U.S. 205, 61 S.Ct. 204, 85 L.Ed. 128; United States v. Peoni, 2 Cir., 100 F.2d 401; Tinsley v. United States, 8 Cir., 43 F.2d 890, 892, 893. The Court of Appeals aptly drew analogy in the comment, 'Thieves who dispose of their loot to a single receiver—a single 'fence'—do not by that fact alone become confederates: they may, but it takes more than knowledge that he is a 'fence' to make them such.' 151 F.2d at page 173. It stated that the trial judge 'was plainly wrong in supposing that upon the evidence there could be a single conspiracy; and in the view he took of the law, he should have dismissed the indictment.' 151 F.2d at page 172. Nevertheless the appellate court held the error not prejudicial, saying among other things that 'especially since guilt was so manifest, it was 'proper' to join the conspiracies,' and 'to reverse the conviction would be a miscarriage of justice.'⁶ This is indeed the Government's entire position. It does not now contend h at there was no variance in proof from the single conspiracy charged in the indictment. Admitting that separate and distinct conspiracies were shown, it urges that the variance was not prejudicial to the petitioners.

In Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78, 55 S.Ct. 629, 79 L.Ed. 1314, this Court held that in the circumstances presented the variance was not fatal where one conspiracy was charged and two were proved, relating to contemporaneous transactions involving counterfeit money. One of the conspiracies had two participants; the other had three; and one defendant Katz, was common to each. ⁷ 'The true inquiry,' said the Court, 'is not whether there has been a variance of proof, but whether there has been such a variance as to 'affect the substantial rights' of the accused.' 295 U.S. at page 82, 55 S.Ct. at page 630.

The Court held the variance not fatal,⁸ resting its ruling on what has become known as 'the harmless error statute,' § 269 of the Judicial Code, as amended, 28 U.S.C. § 391, 28 U.S.C.A. § 391, which is controlling in this case and provides: 'On the hearing of any appeal, certiorari, writ of error, or motion for a new trial, in any case, civil or criminal, the court shall give judgment after an examination of the entire record before the court, without regard to technical errors, defects, or exceptions which do not affect the substantial rights o the parties.'⁹

Applying that section, the Court likened the situation to one where the four persons implicated in the two conspiracies had been charged as conspirators in separate counts, but with a failure in the proof to connect one of them (Berger) with one of the conspiracies, and a resulting conviction under one count and acquittal under the other. In that event, the Court said, 'Plainly enough, his substantial rights would not have been affected.' The situation supposed and the one actually presented, the opinion stated, though differing greatly in form, were not different in substance. The proof relating to the conspiracy with which Berger had not been connected could be regarded as incompetent as to him. But nothing in the facts, it was concluded, could reasonably be said to show that prejudice or surprise resulted; and the court went on to say, 'Certainly the fact that the proof disclosed two conspiracies instead of one, each within the words of the indictment, cannot prejudice his defense of former acquittal of the one or former conviction of the other, if he should again be prosecuted.' 295 U.S. at page 83, 55 S.Ct. at page 631.

The question we have to determine is whether the same ruling may be extended to a situation in which one conspiracy only is charged and at least eight having separate, though similar objects, are made out by the evidence, if believed; and in which the more numerous participants in the different schemes were, on the whole, except for one, different persons who did not know or have anything to do with one another.

The salutary policy embodied in § 269 was adopted by the Congress in 1919, Act of February 26, 1919, c. 48, 40 Stat. 1181, after long agitation under distinguished professional sponsorship,¹⁰ and after thorough consideration of various proposals designed to enact the policy in successive Congresses from the Sixtieth to the Sixty-fifth.¹¹ It is not necessary to review in detail the history of the abuses which led to the agitation or of the progress of the legislation through the various sessions to final enactment without debate. 56 Cong.Rec. 11586; 57 Cong.Rec. 3605. But anyone familiar with it knows that § 269 and similar state legislation¹² grew out of widespread and deep conviction over the general course of appellate review in American crii nal causes. This was shortly, as one trial judge put it after § 269 had become law, that courts of review, 'tower above the trials of criminal cases as impregnable citadels of technicality.'¹³ So great was the threat of reversal, in many jurisdictions, that criminal trial became a game for sowing reversible error in the record, only to have repeated the same...