U.S. v. Bryant, 74-1466

• Decision Date: 22 May 1975
• Docket Number: No. 74-1466,74-1466
• Citation: 516 F.2d 307
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James BRYANT, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

Page 307

516 F.2d 307

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. James BRYANT, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 74-1466.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued Feb. 24, 1975.

Decided May 22, 1975.

Francis E. Andrew, Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellant.

James R. Thompson, U. S. Atty., Gary L. Starkman, Theodore T. Scudder, Asst. U. S. Attys., Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellee.

Before CASTLE, Senior Circuit Judge, and SWYGERT and STEVENS, Circuit Judges.

CASTLE, Senior Circuit Judge.

This vote fraud case arises out of the March 21, 1972 primary election in Chicago, Illinois, involving contests for state and federal offices. Defendant James Bryant, a Democratic precinct captain for the twentieth precinct in Chicago's twenty-seventh ward, was convicted after a nonjury trial ¹ of conspiracy to injure the Constitutional and statutory rights of voters by causing fraudulent votes to be cast in that election in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 241. ² As has been recently reiterated, that section applies to primary as well as general elections, and "embraces a conspiracy to stuff the ballot box at an election for federal officers, and thereby to dilute the value of votes of qualified voters . . . ." Anderson v. United States, 417 U.S. 211, 226, 94 S.Ct. 2253, 41 L.Ed.2d 20 (1974); United States v. Barker, 514 F.2d 1077, at 1078-79 (7th Cir. 1975). On appeal, the defendant does not contest the fact that fraudulent votes were cast by four election judges who worked at the polling place in the precinct. ³ He argues, however, that the evidence is insufficient to show that he participated in a conspiracy with those judges to cast fraudulent votes for federal offices.

Viewed in the light most favorable to the government, the evidence shows that election judge Dorothy Smith testified that the defendant placed a list with some names on it on a table around which the election judges sat, said that "too many people hadn't been in," and asked us to "take care of it (the list)." Although the defendant did not elaborate on what "take care of it" meant, Smith assumed that the defendant meant that she was to vote for the people on the list. Another election judge, Carolyn Hilliard, testified that the defendant looked at the registration list to determine who had not voted, and then suggested that the judges fill out registration slips for those who were not coming out to vote.

This evidence would clearly be sufficient to show beyond a reasonable doubt the defendant's participation in a conspiracy to cast fraudulent votes. The defendant asserts, however, that the above evidence cannot be relied on to support his conviction. First, he argues that the district court's Memorandum Decision shows that it did not credit Smith's testimony. Second, he contends that the district court improperly relied on Hilliard's prior statements to the grand jury and to the FBI, which were used only to refresh Hilliard's recollection and which were not offered into evidence, to give credence to Hilliard's trial testimony that it was the defendant who suggested the vote fraud. The defendant's assertions rest on the following paragraph from the district court's decision:

. . . (The election judges) all knew the defendant but were obviously reluctant to implicate him. The only one who did so in court was Carolyn Hilliard Clark (sic), and her testimony on this point vacillated in the extreme, depending largely on which side was asking the questions and whether her attention was being directed to her prior statements which incriminated the defendant before the Grand Jury and to the F.B.I. The court credits her incriminating testimony because it is consistent with the circumstances and with her past incriminating statements.

We cannot agree with the defendant's argument that, since "the naked words of witness Turner (Smith) implicated James Bryant in some respects . . . ." (Defendant's Reply Brief at 5), the district court's statement that Hilliard was the only witness who implicated the defendant must mean that the court chose not to believe Smith. The meaning of the district court's statement must be evaluated in light of the entire decision and the record.

First, in its decision, the district court explicitly stated:

At some time during the day (Bryant) gave a list of voters' names to Dorothy Smith. The list was never seen again after the polls closed, but Dorothy Smith testified that it was in the defendant's handwriting and that he said that too many of the names on the list had not been in and that the list should be "taken care of." ⁴

The district court found these events to have occurred despite the fact that other election judges testified that they did not see any such list or hear any such direction made by the defendant. Clearly, then, the district court must have found Smith to be a credible witness because it believed her version of the events that transpired.

Second, the district court's conclusion that Hilliard was the only one who implicated the defendant is consistent with the court also relying on the testimony of Smith. Hilliard's testimony provided direct evidence of Bryant's involvement in the conspiracy. Hilliard was the only witness who linked Bryant to the conspiracy by testifying that Bryant explicitly stated that false registration slips should be filled out for those voters who were not coming out to vote. The evidence provided by Smith's testimony as to the defendant's involvement was circumstantial. The defendant did not make a direct statement to Smith, but instead, she inferred from his statement to "take care of it" that he meant for the judges to cast fraudulent votes. This difference in the nature of the testimony of Smith and Hilliard, in conjunction with the fact that the decision itself shows that the district court found Smith to be credible, convinces us that by stating...