United States v. Montgomery

• Decision Date: 06 January 1942
• Docket Number: No. 7847.,7847.
• Citation: 126 F.2d 151
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. MONTGOMERY.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

126 F.2d 151 (1942)

UNITED STATES v. MONTGOMERY.

No. 7847.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Third Circuit.

Argued November 6, 1941.

Decided January 6, 1942.

As Amended March 6, 1942.

Rehearing Denied March 7, 1942.

Michael Serody, of Philadelphia, Pa. (Jacob Weinstein, of Philadelphia, Pa., on the brief), for appellant.

W. Orvyl Schalick, Asst. U. S. Atty., of Camden, N. J., for appellee.

Before CLARK and JONES, Circuit Judges, and GANEY, District Judge.

JONES, Circuit Judge.

The appellant, along with others, was indicted and convicted for defrauding the United States of tax, possessing an unregistered still and fermenting mash, and removing, etc., untaxed distilled spirits in violation of the internal revenue law, 26 U.S.C.A. Int.Rev.Code ?? 2810, 2833, 2834 and 3321. In support of his appeal from the judgment entered on the jury's verdict, the appellant alleges that certain evidence was improperly received in rebuttal when it should have been offered in the government's case in chief; that certain questions propounded to a witness in direct examination by the government's attorney should have been excluded because they were leading; and that the trial court erred in denying the defendant an opportunity to impeach the credibility of a witness for the government by showing that he had been convicted of a misdemeanor for the desertion of his wife and children.

Briefly stated, the facts giving rise to the questions raised by the appellant show the following. One Giannini, a confessed accomplice, testified for the government. For the purpose of corroborating him, one Michael DeLeone, another of the indictees, was called as a witness. Subsequently, Leo DeLeone, a brother of Michael, was called in rebuttal and testified that the defendant Montgomery had warned Michael DeLeone to stay away from the Hovis farm (the site of the still) and that Michael tried to induce Montgomery to procure the release of the other defendants then in custody, which Montgomery agreed to do after a short time had elapsed.

Montgomery, as a witness in his own behalf, in order to show bias on the part of Giannini, testified that about one month before the first trial of the case (the trial here involved being the third) he and Giannini had engaged in a fist fight during which Giannini drew a gun on him, and further that the meeting which led to the fight was a chance encounter and had not been prearranged. The government recalled Giannini who testified, over objection by the defendant, that the meeting had been prearranged by Montgomery to enable the latter to induce Giannini to testify falsely by paying him for that purpose. It is this testimony in rebuttal which the appellant contends should have been introduced during the government's case in chief.

As to the second contention, the questions put to Leo DeLeone, who was called in rebuttal with respect to statements which Montgomery in his own behalf had denied making, were leading in form but were permitted over objection. The questions put to Giannini when recalled in rebuttal were also leading in form but the objection interposed at trial by the defendant was that the evidence was not proper rebuttal.

The third contention rests on the fact that during the cross-examination of Leo DeLeone, defendant's counsel, for the purpose of impeaching him, asked the witness if he had not been convicted of a misdemeanor in Pennsylvania for the desertion of his wife and children. Upon objection of government's counsel, cross-examination on the matter indicated was disallowed by the court.

The foregoing embraces the whole of the errors assigned and no exceptions were taken to the court's charge to the jury.

Even assuming that the testimony of Leo DeLeone and so much of Giannini's as was offered in rebuttal might have been properly introduced by the government in its case in chief, its admission in rebuttal did not of itself constitute reversible error. It is well settled that the order of the reception of evidence lies largely in the discretion of the trial judge, whose action will not be reversed on appeal unless it amounts to a gross abuse of discretion. Goldsby v. United States, 160 U.S. 70, 74, 16 S.Ct. 216, 40 L.Ed. 343; Diehl v. United States, 8 Cir., 98 F.2d 545, 548; United States v. Hirsch et al., 2 Cir., 74 F. 2d 215, 219; Hoffman et al. v. United States, 10 Cir., 68 F.2d 101, 103; Miller v. United States, 8 Cir., 21 F.2d 32, 38; Osborne et al. v. United States, 9 Cir., 17 F.2d 246, 250; Marron et al. v. United States, 9 Cir., 8 F.2d 251, 257; Austin v. United States, 9 Cir., 4 F.2d 774, 775; United States v. Heitler et al., D.C.N.D.Ill., 274 F. 401, 406; State v. Dolbow et al., Err. & App., 117 N. J.L. 560, 189 A. 915, 917, 109 A.L.R. 1488; State v. Genese, Err. & App., 102 N.J.L. 134, 130 A. 642, 646; State v. Unger et al., Sup., 93 N.J.L. 50, 107 A. 270, 271; State v. Skillman, Sup., 76 N.J.L. 464, 70 A. 83, 86. Abuse of discretion in such regard arises only where the order of proof permitted by the trial judge is harmful or prejudicial. Such is the case where a contradiction by rebuttal is made to revolve about a fact directly material to the issue and which is not proven substantively throughout the case (Whealton et al. v. United States, 3 Cir., 113 F.2d 710, 716), or the evidence in rebuttal is of a subsequent transaction which has no evidentiary bearing on any issue presented by the trial (Coulston v. United States, 10 Cir., 51 F.2d 178, 180), or where the evidence in rebuttal is offered to discredit a witness with respect to a purely collateral matter which was brought into the case by cross-examination of a witness. Cohen v. United States, 1 Cir., 56 F.2d 28, 30; United States v. Sager et al., 2 Cir., 49 F.2d 725, 730.

The appellant shows no recognizable prejudice resulting from the admission of the testimony in rebuttal. And, thereby, he fails to carry the burden resting upon him. Morgan et al. v. United States, 8 Cir., 98 F.2d 473, 477; Haywood et al. v. United States, 7 Cir., 268 F. 795, 798. He admits that the testimony was relevant (Brief of Appellant, p. 8) and objects only to the time of its receipt in evidence. Furthermore, the testimony of Leo DeLeone, which was offered for the purpose of contradicting the defendant's testimony in his own behalf, never became evidentiary until rebuttal. It was therefore not even subject to discretionary exclusion by the trial court, being competent, relevant and material and having been proferred timely. See 6 Wigmore on Evidence, 3rd Ed., ? 1873 (p. 517).

The extent to which leading questions may be indulged and not taint the examination with impropriety is likewise a matter primarily for the discretion of the trial judge. St. Clair v. United States, 154 U.S. 134, 150, 14 S.Ct. 1002, 38 L.Ed. 936; Linn v. United States, 2 Cir., 251 F. 476, 482, 483; Rainey v. Potter, 2 Cir., 120 F. 651, 655; Peters v. United States, 9 Cir., 94 F. 127, 140. As to the testimony of Leo DeLeone, it was necessary in the very nature of the circumstances that the questions asked of him in rebuttal be leading. He had been called to refute specific testimony of the defendant Montgomery. In order to elicit categorically DeLeone's refutations, it was essential that the questions be framed in language cognate to the contradictory testimony of Montgomery. In such instance, leading questions are as proper as they are necessary. 3 Wigmore on Evidence, 3rd Ed., ? 779. As to Giannini's testimony in rebuttal, the defendant's only objection was that it was not proper rebuttal. This of course did not raise the legal question which the appellant now urges. From any viewpoint, it is our opinion that the trial court's refusal to sustain the defendant's objection to the form of certain questions asked by government counsel in rebuttal did not amount to an abuse of discretion nor, by the same token, reversible error.

Finally, the appellant contends that the trial court erred in refusing him leave to impeach a witness for the prosecution by showing that the latter had been convicted of deserting his wife and children in Pennsylvania where that particular offense is denominated a misdemeanor. In this connection, the...