United States v. Murray
Decision Date | 28 July 1971 |
Docket Number | No. 17945.,17945. |
Citation | 445 F.2d 1171 |
Parties | UNITED STATES of America v. Ronnie Lee MURRAY et al. Appeal of James Robert DIXON. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit |
Joseph F. Walsh, Bracken & Walsh, Newark, N. J., for appellant.
Marc L. Dembling, Asst. U. S. Atty., Newark, N. J. (Herbert J. Stern, U. S. Atty., George J. Koelzer, Asst. U. S. Atty., Newark, N. J., on the brief), for appellee.
Before GANEY, VAN DUSEN and GIBBONS, Circuit Judges.
Defendant James Robert Dixon appeals from an April 17, 1969, judgment and commitment entered after defendant was convicted by a jury on a charge of bank robbery1 in the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey.
Two witnesses testified that a tall black man (subsequently identified as Murray) with a sawed-off shotgun entered a bank at Edison, New Jersey, on the morning of April 15, 1968, and ordered a teller to fill up a paper bag with United States currency. The drive-in teller of this bank testified that she saw both the tall black man (Murray) and a shorter black man wearing a shirt and dark pants in the parking lot prior to the robbery. The shorter black man remained in the parking lot during the robbery and the drive-in teller identified Dixon as the shorter black man in the parking lot "as well as I can recall" (N.T. 26).2 After the money had been taken from the bank, this witness saw "the two men out in the parking lot again" (N.T. 18). Police Officer Barrett received a report that a 1968 Green Pontiac was the robbery car and stopped such a car about nine minutes later. Defendants Murray, Dixon and Hart were in the car with Brenda Eagle (Murray's girl-friend), as well as a paper bag with over $26,000 in currency and a sawed-off shotgun, etc. Additional police officers arrived and the occupants of the car were arrested. Pictures of the personal property inside the car were taken promptly and received in evidence.
Murray, for two months after his arrest, adhered to the position that he was the only person involved in the bank robbery (N.T. 104, 106, 109-12, 114, 116, 118, 149; Exhibits D-1, D-2). He changed his story after he was indicted (N.T. 188). Likewise, Mrs. Eagle, for one month after her arrest, adhered to the position that she was asleep in the car and was unaware that a bank robbery was even contemplated, and certainly unaware that it had been perpetrated, until after the occupants of the car were apprehended by the authorities. (Exhibits D-4, D-5, D-6; N.T. 240-41, 252-59, 265-66, 274).
In May 1968, and thereafter, Murray stated to FBI representatives that appellant acted as a lookout in the parking lot and that he transported the paper bag containing the money from the parking lot to the place where the Green Pontiac was parked during the robbery.
Defendant contends that his conviction should be reversed and that he should be granted a new trial because the trial judge improperly restricted defense counsel's cross-examination of two key prosecution witnesses. Specifically, defendant contends that the trial judge committed reversible error when he refused to permit defense counsel to cross-examine two key prosecution witnesses on whether their testimony was given in return for an agreement by the Government not to prosecute Brenda Mary Eagle on charges of aiding and abetting the bank robbery and harboring a fugitive. The first defense contention arises in the context of the testimony of Ronnie Lee Murray. Murray, a co-defendant, had entered a plea of guilty, and had testified that he had entered the bank and perpetrated the robbery, while defendant Dixon stayed outside the bank serving as a lookout (N.T. 8). Murray testified on cross-examination that he was in love with Brenda Mary Eagle, who had accompanied the defendants on their trip from Newark, New Jersey, to the bank that was robbed in Edison Township, New Jersey (N.T. 160, 169). The record reveals that the following then occurred:
The second defense contention arises in the context of the testimony of Brenda Mary Eagle, who also testified against defendant Dixon. The record reveals the following:
This court in United States v. Migliorino, 238 F.2d 7 (3rd Cir. 1956), stated the rule applicable in this Circuit:
238 F.2d at 10-11.
See also Hughes v. United States, 427 F. 2d 66, 68 (9th Cir. 1970); United States v. Dickens, 417 F.2d 958, 961 (8th Cir. 1969). The excluded questions were evidently aimed at impeaching the credibility of Ronnie Lee Murray and Brenda Mary Eagle by eliciting direct testimony, or other evidence from which it could be inferred, that their testimony was impelled by the hope that the Government would not prosecute Brenda Mary Eagle on charges of aiding and abetting the bank robbery and harboring a federal fugitive.3 The record demonstrates that counsel for defendant Dixon was permitted to cross-examine Mrs. Eagle, and counsel for co-defendant Hart was permitted to cross-examine both Murray and Mrs. Eagle, on whether their testimony was given in return for promises of lighter sentences on other charges of bank robbery, arising from an earlier bank robbery, to which charges Murray and Mrs. Eagle had entered pleas of guilty (...
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