United States v. Ryan
| Citation | 232 F.2d 481 |
| Decision Date | 26 April 1956 |
| Docket Number | Docket 23546.,No. 376,376 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Joseph P. RYAN, Appellant. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (2nd Circuit) |
Louis Waldman, New York City, for the petition.
Dennis C. Mahoney, New York City, opposed.
Before HAND, SWAN and FRANK, Circuit Judges.
The Supreme Court, 350 U.S. 299, 76 S.Ct. 400, 405, has reversed the judgment1 herein of this court reversing a conviction of the petitioner under § 186 (b) and (d) of Title 29, U.S.C.A. In its opinion it declared that "we have examined respondent's other contentions urged before the Court of Appeals and find them without merit"; but later it deleted this passage from its opinion, and, as we understand it, the appeal comes again before us in such form that we are to consider those questions on which it was not necessary for us to pass after we had decided that the facts alleged in the indictment were not within the statute. These questions are three: (1) whether there was evidence, properly admitted, on which the finding may rest that the accused "wilfully received" money from an employer of longshoremen; (2) whether the section is so vague and indefinite that it does not adequately describe the crime; and (3) whether the section was beyond the constitutional power of Congress. These we shall take up seriatim.
Ryan was not only president of the International Longshoremen's Association and of the local district union, but in 1950 and 1951 he was a member of the Wage Scale Committee that signed the agreements for those years. Plainly he was in a position where his favor would be, or at any rate might be, of importance to the Kennedy corporations, who employed more than 300 longshoremen during the years 1950 and 1951, when the payments laid in the indictment were made. Similar payments had begun in December 1946, so that the Kennedys had already made four before that of 1950. They were all in cash, and described as Christmas presents on the envelopes that held them. Each year James C. Kennedy, the president of both companies, himself went to Ryan's office and pressed into his hand an envelope containing $1000; and in April of 1951 he added a payment of $500. The testimony of Ruth Kennedy on rebuttal added that the envelopes for 1950 and 1951 also carried the names of one or both of the Kennedy companies. The admission of rebuttal testimony is so patently a matter of discretion that the objection of the reception of this testimony is too trivial for discussion.2 Nor can we treat seriously the argument that the testimony as a whole, if believed, did not justify a finding that Ryan knew that the money came from an employer of those of whom he was a "representative." To what other reason that he was a power in the union he could have ascribed such a series of substantial gifts, he does not suggest. We should have to impute to him an infantile naivety to acquit him of a complete understanding of Kennedy's meaning; any other finding than that made would have demonstrated complete incapacity to judge humane motives.
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