United States v. Curcio
| Decision Date | 07 June 1960 |
| Docket Number | No. 309,Docket 26050.,309 |
| Citation | 279 F.2d 681 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Joseph CURCIO and George Baker, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Solomon A. Klein, Brooklyn, N. Y., for defendants-appellants.
Stephen E. Kaufman, Asst. U. S. Atty., S.D.N.Y., New York City (S. Hazard Gillespie, Jr., U. S. Atty., and David R. Hyde, Asst. U. S. Atty., New York City, on the brief), for appellee.
Before CLARK, MOORE, and FRIENDLY, Circuit Judges.
The defendants are officials of a labor union, the income tax liability of whose president, John Dioguardi, was under investigation by the government, and this prosecution grew out of the disappearance of union books and records desired for examination in these investigations. Defendants are appealing their conviction of conspiring to obstruct justice in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1503 and of making false statements in a matter within the jurisdiction of the Internal Revenue Service in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001. These false statements were to the effect that the union books and records were stolen from the union offices in 1954, although an attempted robbery had in fact left them untouched. The conspiracy charge involved the final disappearance of this and other evidence in 1956, after defendants had been subpoenaed to produce it. Their claim was (although they did not personally take the stand) that it had been stolen from Baker's car parked on the street overnight after they had assembled it for production before a grand jury, and that the left front windbreak panel window of his car had been broken, leaving a three-inch hole. This hole, however, was so small that a tool or device would have been necessary to open the door. In addition to these incriminating facts, the government at the trial produced other evidence of attempts to conceal, and false statements as to the missing records, all pointing to the guilt of the accused and as a whole constituting an adequate basis for the jury's verdict of conviction. United States v. Manton, 2 Cir., 107 F.2d 834, 839, certiorari denied Manton v. United States, 309 U.S. 664, 60 S.Ct. 590, 84 L. Ed. 1012. Hence the case was properly left to the jury. Further, the judge committed no error in instructing the jurors in the language of Allen v. United States, 164 U.S. 492, 501, 17 S.Ct. 154, 41 L.Ed. 528, on the desirability of seeking agreement when they reported disagreement and asked for...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Hampton v. Hanrahan
...470 F.2d 1205, 1206-08 (2d Cir. 1972), Cert. denied, 411 U.S. 918, 93 S.Ct. 1556, 36 L.Ed.2d 310 (1973); United States v. Curcio, 279 F.2d 681, 682 (2d Cir. 1960), Cert. denied, 364 U.S. 824, 81 S.Ct. 59, 5 L.Ed.2d Insofar as the complaints of the Anderson plaintiffs that Judge Perry dispar......
-
United States v. Fioravanti
...v. United States, 358 U.S. 830, 79 S.Ct. 51, 3 L.Ed.2d 69; Wegman v. United States, 272 F.2d 31, 35 (8 Cir. 1959); United States v. Curcio, 279 F.2d 681 (2 Cir. 1960); White v. United States, 279 F.2d 740, 750 (4 Cir. 1960); Walker v. United States, 342 F. 2d 22 (5 Cir. 1965), the length of......
-
Ralls v. Manson
.... . they should do so." Id. at 355 (emphasis added). This has been the consistent position of our Court of Appeals. See United States v. Curcio, 279 F.2d 681 (2d Cir.), cert. denied 364 U.S. 824, 81 S.Ct. 59, 5 L.Ed.2d 52 (1960); United States v. Thomas, 282 F.2d 191 (2d Cir. 1960); United ......
-
U.S. v. Lamont, 1226
...States v. Reed,526 F.2d 740, 743 (CA 2 1975), cert. denied, 424 U.S. 956, 96 S.Ct. 1431, 47 L.Ed.2d 361 (1976), and United States v. Curcio, 279 F.2d 681, 682 (CA 2), cert. denied, 364 U.S. 824, 81 S.Ct. 59, 5 L.Ed.2d 52 Moreover, a trial judge assuredly is authorized to ask questions which......