United States v. Greathouse, 72-2004.
| Decision Date | 16 August 1973 |
| Docket Number | No. 72-2004.,72-2004. |
| Citation | 484 F.2d 805 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Emma Jean GREATHOUSE, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Carolyn Jaffe, Chicago, Ill., for defendant-appellant.
James R. Thompson, U. S. Atty., William T. Huyck, and Terry M. Gordon, Asst. U. S. Attys., Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellee.
Before SWYGERT, Chief Judge, and GRANT* and REYNOLDS,** District Judges.
Defendant Emma Jean Greathouse was convicted in a court trial of three counts of transporting and negotiating forged securities in violation of 18 U.S. C.A. § 2314. She now claims she was denied a fair trial because the presiding judge had previously read the presentence report of codefendant Bob Greene who testified against her and because this same presentence report, which tended to impeach Greene, was not disclosed to her attorney.
In August 1971, defendant collaborated with Greene to forge and cash securities of the Eastman-Kodak Company. Defendant made counterfeit copies of a legitimate Eastman-Kodak check. Greene, who had gained the trust of certain bank employees from his previous employment as a bookkeeper for a large corporation, attempted to cash the checks at various banks in the immediate area.
Greene pleaded guilty on July 11, 1972, a presentence was ordered, and the date for sentencing was set. On the same day that Greene was to be sentenced, defendant's trial began. Before the Government began its case-in-chief, the judge made the following remarks:
Defense counsel did not raise any objection.
Defendant does not contend that the presentence report of Greene contained any new information bearing on the offense. The alleged prejudice arose from Greene's statement in the report that defendant told him a third party, the cashier, "came to her house to meet girls and smoke dope," thereby suggesting that defendant engaged in other criminal activities. The defendant claims that the report's value to her lay in the fact that Greene lied in the report even about such things as his age, education, and prior marital and employment history.
During the trial Greene testified for the Government that defendant had given him the checks and that he negotiated them at her request, sharing some of the proceeds with her. Other evidence also suggested that defendant had participated in the crime. A search of a filing cabinet in the defendant's office produced twenty-eight undated Eastman-Kodak checks payable in blank, a receipt for a check of $7,000, and a legitimate Eastman-Kodak check which was payable to a third person and on which defendant's fingerprints were found. Another blank Eastman-Kodak check was found on defendant's person.
Defendant attempted to show that Greene alone was guilty. She indicated that they had been having an affair. And it was corroborated that Greene visited her office often and maintained exclusively the filing cabinet where most of the checks were found.
In finding defendant guilty on all counts, the judge stated, "Mr. Greene is probably a pathological liar" and "I don't believe his testimony in many respects." However, he went on to say,
Defendant has failed to establish that the judge's reading of the presentence report prejudiced her to any significant extent. Nothing in the record indicates that the information in the presentence report affected the judge's...
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