United States v. Beasley, 20029.
Citation | 438 F.2d 1279 |
Decision Date | 12 February 1971 |
Docket Number | No. 20029.,20029. |
Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Millard Robert BEASLEY, Defendant-Appellant. |
Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (6th Circuit) |
Nick Avern (deceased) and Richard Schneider, Detroit, Mich., on brief for defendant-appellant.
James H. Brickley, U. S. Atty., Richard L. Delonis, Asst. U. S. Atty., Detroit, Mich., on brief for plaintiff-appellee.
Before EDWARDS, CELEBREZZE, and McCREE, Circuit Judges.
Millard Robert Beasley appeals from a conviction of attempted robbery of the Michigan Bank, a federally insured institution, aggravated by an assault on the bank's head teller. 18 U.S.C. § 2113(d). The indictment under which he was tried contained two counts, the one for which he was convicted, and one specifying unaggravated robbery arising out of the same transaction, 18 U.S. C. § 2113(a). In view of the Appellant's conviction under section 2113(d), and his receipt of the maximum penalty, 25 years, no disposition was made by the District Court of the offense charged in the count specifying the violation of section 2113(a), which carries a maximum penalty of 20 years. The Appellant waived trial by jury.
Later, the Appellant was identified as the holdup man by his latent palm print, which was discovered on the note he passed into the teller's window, and by the stylized lettering of the note, which could have been stenciled with a lettering guide ruler to which the Appellant had access. This evidence was sufficient to establish his identity beyond a reasonable doubt.
The Appellant took the stand at trial and testified that he could not have committed the crime, first, because at the time the crime was committed he was at lunch with a friend, who died before the Appellant's case came to trial; second, because during his lifelong career in crime, comprising many arrests and convictions of several robberies, he had never used this particular modus operandi before. The District Court was unconvinced by the Appellant's defense, and entered judgment against him under 18 U.S.C. § 2113(d).
The Appellant raises a spate of issues on appeal, all but one of which lack sufficient merit to warrant extended discussion. First, the Appellant maintains that his palm prints were taken by the police in violation of his constitutional rights. This argument is without substance. The record reveals that the Appellant, possessed of a college-level education and worldly in affairs of criminal procedure, voluntarily turned himself in to the federal authorities for the purpose of an informal interview, voluntarily executed waivers of his constitutional rights, and willingly submitted to having his finger and palm prints taken by the federal agents. Moreover, the Appellant's Miranda warnings were properly administered, and he was told by the agents that he was free to leave the interview at any time.
Second, the Appellant contends that the Government's failure to call the laboratory technician who processed the Appellant's latent palm print from the holdup note violated his Sixth Amendment right to confront and cross-examine his accusers. The technician who processed the prints was shown, by the Government, to have left the service of the police and to have been unavailable for trial, notwithstanding extensive efforts to locate him at his last known address. In his absence, the print was authenticated by Officer Yakush, chief of the scientific bureau, who was present when the latent prints were "brought out" on the holdup note. He testified that the test is a mechanical, routine one, and that it was properly performed in the instant case. As an eyewitness to it, the officer was as competent to testify to its accuracy, and to authenticate the prints, as the technician would have been. Having thus produced one competent, reliable witness to authenticate the prints, the Government was under no obligation to call others, so long as their identities were not withheld or suppressed from the Appellant. United States v. Gholston, 437 F.2d 260 (6th Cir. 1971). Furthermore, there could have been nothing accusatorial in the technician's testimony that he properly performed the mechanical test of "bringing out" the latent prints on the note paper; therefore he was not a witness "against" the Appellant, and the Sixth Amendment guarantee of confrontation and cross examination does not apply. On the other hand, the fingerprint expert who matched the laboratory's print with those of the Appellant was a witness "against" the Appellant, and he, properly, was presented at trial and cross-examined.
Totally without substance are the Appellant's contentions that: the Government did not grant him access to all relevant evidence during discovery; the identification evidence was insufficient to support his conviction; the District Court erred in not requiring the "bomb" to be introduced; the District Court was unfair and biased.
The remaining issue on appeal concerns the sufficiency of the evidence to support the District Court's finding that the robbery was aggravated by an assault on Mrs. Stylas, justifying the judgment under section 2113(d), which carries a penalty five years greater than unaggravated robbery, 18 U.S.C. § 2113(a). The Appellant argues that since the "bomb" he passed into the teller's window was, in fact, incapable of producing harm, and that since the District Court made no finding that Mrs. Stylas was placed "in fear" by it, the evidence is insufficient to support the lower court's finding of an "assault." We disagree.
The relevant statutory provisions state:
It has been well established that subsection (d) is to be read disjunctively, being violated either by an "assault," or by putting life in jeopardy with a dangerous weapon. Gant v. United States, 161 F.2d 793 (3d Cir. 1947); United States v. Murray, 149 F.2d 932 (5th Cir. 1945). The term "assault" is nowhere defined in the statute or in its legislative history, see generally, Prince v. United States, 352 U.S. 322, 77 S.Ct. 403, 1 L.Ed.2d 370 (1957), and the elements of the offense have not been elaborated either by the Supreme Court or by the lower federal courts.
Insofar as the base provision, section 2113(a), specifies the use of "force," "violence," or "intimidation," something more must be required to prove robbery aggravated by assault. We believe that those additional elements are present where, as here, the robber is shown to have...
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