United States v. Rabin, 13804.

• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit)
• Writing for the Court: HASTINGS, , CASTLE, Circuit , and MERCER
• Citation: 316 F.2d 564
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William W. RABIN, Defendant-Appellant.
• Docket Number: No. 13804.,13804.
• Decision Date: 25 April 1963

316 F.2d 564 (1963)

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
William W. RABIN, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 13804.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

April 25, 1963.

316 F.2d 565

Richard E. Gorman, Chicago, Ill., for appellant.

James P. O'Brien, U. S. Atty., John Powers Crowley, Asst. U. S. Atty., Chicago, Ill. (John Peter Lulinski, Robert S. Atkins, Asst. U. S. Attys., of counsel), for appellee.

Before HASTINGS, Chief Judge, CASTLE, Circuit Judge, and MERCER, District Judge.

CASTLE, Circuit Judge.

William W. Rabin, defendant-appellant, was convicted following a jury trial of violations of 18 U.S.C.A. § 2315 charged in the first four counts of a nine count indictment. He was sentenced to imprisonment for ten years and fined $10,000 and costs on each of the four counts. The sentences of imprisonment are to run concurrently but the fines are cumulative.

The counts upon which he was convicted¹ charged defendant-appellant, individually, with pledging to a Chicago bank as security for loans on each of four separate dates a designated number of stolen Canadian bearer bonds of a stated value in excess of $5000 in each instance. The counts charged that said securities were a part of and constituted interstate and foreign commerce and were moving as such from Brockville, Ontario, Canada, where they had been stolen, to Chicago, Illinois, and that the defendant knew the securities to have been stolen and made said pledges with unlawful and fraudulent intent, willfully, knowingly and feloniously in violation of § 2315.

The main contested issues presented by defendant's appeal are:

(1) Whether in order to establish the offenses of which defendant was convicted it was essential that proof be made of Canadian law to show that under such law the taking of the securities was such as to characterize them as securities "stolen, unlawfully converted, or taken" within the meaning of 18 U.S.C.A. § 2315.

316 F.2d 566

(2) Whether there was evidence to establish:

(a) that the securities pledged were a part of or moving in interstate or foreign commerce, and

(b) that defendant had knowledge of the stolen character of the securities he pledged.

(3) Whether the trial of the defendant on the multiple counts, including the conspiracy count, resulted in such prejudice to the defendant as amounts to a denial of a fair trial and an abuse of due process.

The record discloses that sometime early in the morning of May 4, 1958, the premises of the Brockville Trust and Savings Bank, Brockville, Ontario, Canada, were broken into. The north wall of the bank's vault had been forcibly entered and a hole approximately 22 inches in diameter had been made therein. In the vault itself, holes had been cut through the doors of two safes and the combination lock had been knocked off a third. On the floor of the vault there was a considerable amount of charred papers and bonds. Tools such as crowbars, picks, electric drills, and acetylene torch cutting equipment were spread about the premises. In excess of $3,000,000 worth of Canadian bonds which had been in the vault for safe-keeping were missing. The next day $1,200,000 worth of bonds which had been taken from the bank were found in a railway station locker in Montreal. Brockville is located midway between Montreal and Toronto, Canada.

The defendant pledged Canadian bearer bonds, identified as among those taken from the Brockville bank, with a Chicago, Illinois, bank as security for loans made him. These transactions took place on September 16, September 29, October 1, and October 2, 1958, and involved bonds valued at $13,700, $16,300, $10,000 and $89,000 respectively. In each instance the pledge was made shortly after the defendant returned from a trip to Montreal. He was in Montreal on September 11, September 27, and September 30, 1958.

The foregoing is but a partial summary of the evidence but it will suffice to serve as a preface to a discussion of the issues raised on appeal.

The defendant contends that to establish the offenses for which he was convicted it was incumbent upon the government to make proof of the law of Canada and to establish by such proof that the taking of the securities from the bank at Brockville was a violation of the law of Canada. He relies, in this connection, on the application of the doctrine that United States Courts may not take judicial notice of the laws of a foreign country. But such reliance is misplaced. In the application of § 2315 it is of no import whether Canada has a law which proscribes the conduct perpetrated in the forced entry of the Brockville bank and the taking and carrying away of the securities entrusted to its care with intent to deprive the owners thereof. Wherever the...