U.S. v. Goodson

• Decision Date: 25 October 1974
• Docket Number: No. 73-3766,73-3766
• Citation: 502 F.2d 1303
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Leon X. GOODSON and James Clarence Goodson, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit

Page 1303

502 F.2d 1303

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Leon X. GOODSON and James Clarence Goodson, Defendants-Appellants.

No. 73-3766.

United States Court of Appeals, Fifth Circuit.

Oct. 25, 1974.

Gerald Urbach, Dallas, Tex., for James Clarence Goodson.

Leon X. Goodson, pro se.

Frank McCown, U.S. Atty., Fort Worth, Tex., Charles D. Cabaniss, Asst. U.S. Atty., Dallas, Tex., John W. Sweeney, Jr., Asst. U.S. Atty., Ft. Worth, Tex., for plaintiff-appellee.

Before WISDON and CLARK, Circuit Judges, and GROOMS, District Judge.

WISDOM, Circuit Judge:

James Clarence Goodson and Leon X. Goodson, together with several other persons, were tried before a jury upon an indictment charging the defendants with conspiracy to defraud the United States in violation of 18 U.S.C. 371 ¹ and with the substantive offenses of forgery and the uttering of forged endorsements in violation of 18 U.S.C. 495. ² The government checks in question were some of those stolen in the robbery of a United States Post Office Department vehicle containing a large number of Government checks. Both James and Leon Goodson were found guilty on all counts. They now appeal. We affirm the judgment in part and reverse in part as to both the appellants.

I.

James Goodson attacks his conviction for conspiracy to defraud the United States in violation of 18 U.S.C. 371 on two separate grounds. His first argument asserts that the Government failed to prove the offense of conspiracy because it offered no proof of a conscious agreement and thus failed to show that the alleged conspirators worked together understandingly with a single design for the accomplishment of a common purpose. The appellant's argument correctly states the need for proof of a conscious agreement in a trial for conspiracy, but incorrectly assumes that the proof must be made by direct evidence. An agreement to conspire may be inferred from all the circumstances of a case. The nature of the crime itself makes circumstantial evidence the only proof generally available. Such evidence will be sufficient to support a conspiracy conviction if the evidence places the defendant 'at the hub of the wheel of events' so that 'the jury might reasonably find that the evidence excludes every reasonable hypothesis, except that of guilt'. Grant v. United States, 5 Cir. 1969, 407 F.2d 56, 57.

The facts in this case demonstrate that Leon Goodson solicited aid for the purpose of robbing a mail truck on the day before the robbery. A vehicle meeting the description of one owned by Leon Goodson was used in the robbery. On the day of the robbery, Leon Goodson used that vehicle to deliver a bag containing Government checks to his brother, James Goodson, who took the checks to the back room of his store. James Goodson thereafter paid John Wade to forge endorsements on some of the checks. He told Wade that he could not sign the checks himself because he planned to deposit them to his own account. James Goodson also solicited the aid of Clark Reeves, who received a quarter of the proceeds in exchange for using some of the checks to pay his legitimate business expenses. Goodson explained to Reeves that he did not want to run any more of them through his own account. For his part, Leon Goodson asked Dollie Wilson if she 'knew how to cash checks' and employed her for that purpose. In view of this division of the checks for the purpose of negotiation and the other incriminating circumstances, we hold that there is sufficient evidence to support the jury's finding of a conscious agreement to conspire to defraud the United States, under the test established by Grant.

James Goodson relies on Hoffman-LaRoche v. Greenberg, 7 Cir. 1971,447 F.2d 872, for the proposition that transactions must be parallel or repetitive, rather than isolated, in order to establish a conspiracy. Although Goodson's statement of that decision is correct, we differ with his characterization of the transactions in his own case as 'isolated'. In Hoffman-LaRoche, the Government attempted to establish a conspiracy between two men who were entirely unaware of each other's existence or activities; their only connection was that both obtained stolen goods from the same source. The Seventh Circuit held that their transactions were isolated and could not support a finding of conspiracy. In the Goodsons' case, Leon appears to have been the source of the stolen checks as well as one of the two actors in the forgery and attempted negotiation of the checks. The evidence does not support a conclusion that the efforts of Leon and James Goodson were 'isolated' in the sense of being unrelated. The more plausible conclusion, implicit in the jury's guilty verdict, is that each brother took responsibility for reducing a portion of the checks to cash. It is well-established that a conspiracy does not lose its character because efficiency or expertise requires a division of labor among the participants. Merely '(because) members had varied duties does not change the fact that they all acted in furtherance of the same conspiracy'. United States v. Owen, 7 Cir. 1965, 346 F.2d 329, 330. We think that the evidence adduced at trial was sufficient to allow the jury to infer a conspiracy and would support a conviction on this count but for the merit of James Goodson's second argument.

James Goodson's second argument states that the proof offered by the Government may be sufficient to support the existence of a conspiracy, but that the proof does not conform to the particular conspiracy offense charged in the indictment. The language of the indictment alleges a conspiracy to commit the following offense:

To wilfully and knowingly, with intent to defraud, forge, falsely make and alter United States Treasury checks for the purpose of obtaining and receiving directly or indirectly from the United States or agents thereof any sum of money; and, to knowingly and wilfully with intent to defraud the United States utter and publish as true falsely made, forged and altered United States Treasury checks, knowing the same to be false, altered and forged in violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 495.

The indictment requires the Government to prove that the defendants conspired to forge, falsely make and alter Government instruments. The Government's evidence, however, was directed entirely toward proving that the defendants conspired to place false endorsements on otherwise valid instruments.

A similar divergence of indictment and proof occurred in United States v. Danielson, 9 Cir. 1963, 321 F.2d 441. In Danielson, the defendants were charged with conspiring to 'falsely make, forge and counterfeit and knowingly utter and publish as true, with the intent to defraud the United States of America, 171 United States Savings Bonds.' 321 F.2d 441, 442. The evidence established that the Bonds were valid Government instruments and that the defendant forged endorsements rather than the instruments themselves. The court in Danielson held that this divergence of allegation and proof was fatal to the conviction because a defendant cannot 'be charged with one crime and convicted of another merely because the latter is developable out of the proof which fails to show the crime charged'. 321 F.2d 441, 444, n. 8.

We agree with the Danielson court that such a divergence cannot be dismissed as harmless error and reverse James Goodson's conviction on the conspiracy count.

Leon Goodson's pro se brief alleges that there was insufficient evidence to support his conviction on the conspiracy court. We construe his pro se brief to include the argument seccessfully made by James Goodson and therefore reverse Leon Goodson's conviction on the conspiracy count as well.

II.

As a second basis for reversal, James Goodson alleges that the evidence adduced at trial was insufficient to support the jury's verdict of guilty on the substantive counts. Leon Goodson makes substantially the same argument in his pro se brief. The standard for evaluating the sufficiency of the evidence on appellate review requires that the evidence supporting the verdict be viewed in the light most favorable to the Government. United States v. Glasser, 1942, 315 U.S. 60, 62 S.Ct. 457, 86 L.Ed. 680. We are convinced that the Government introduced sufficient evidence from which the jury could reasonably conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the appellants were guilty of the offenses for which they were charged. We see no benefit to be gained by a recital here of the voluminous facts adduced at trial.

III.

James Joodson's next allegation of error concerns the admission into evidence of a prior written statement made by a Government witness who was present and testified at trial. The appellant contends that the Government improperly relied on the witness's prior consistent statement to bolster his otherwise 'weak and contradictory testimony'. On direct examination, Timothy Prince testified that he was with Leon Goodson when Leon delivered a bag of blue-colored checks to James Goodson's store. He also testified that James Goodson took the checks to the back room of the store. At the close of extensive cross-examination, James Goodson's counsel asked Prince whether he had actually seen the checks or only brown envolopes which might have contained Government Checks. Prince replied he had seen only the brown envelopes. Prince had seen either checks or envolopes on a number of different occasions and there was some ambiguity in his testimony as to exactly what he had seen at various times. In the face of this ambiguity, James Goodson's counsel brought up the matter of the prior statement Prince had given to the Government and attempted to discredit the witness by suggesting that it was not the same story he had told in his incourt testimony. The Government then offered Prince's prior written statement for the sole purpose of re-establishing his credibility. In light of the defense counsel's attempt to...