PANCI v. UNITED STATES

HUTCHESON, Chief Judge.

This appeal is from a conviction1 and sentence imposed upon a verdict of guilty, on two counts charging substantive violations of the narcotic laws, and one count charging a conspiracy to violate them. By it appellant seeks to test whether a conviction, which, as he claims, because of the admission of highly prejudicial hearsay testimony and the denial of the motion to acquit for want of evidence to convict but keeps the promise of due process to the ear while it breaks it to the hope, may stand.

Urging upon us: that extrajudicial inadmissible hearsay statements were erroneously admitted over his objection; that without them the record is devoid of evidence tending to establish his guilt, and the conviction was one of guilt by association, resting entirely on inadmissible hearsay, and supported by no substantial admissible evidence; the defendant thus earnestly concludes his brief:

Here, presenting under six numbered specifications, three grounds of error: (1) the denial of his motion for bill of particulars; (2) the admission over objection of prejudicial hearsay testimony; and (3) the refusal to direct a verdict of acquittal for want of evidence; appellant urges upon us that the judgment must be reversed with directions to acquit him.

Emphasizing that the government did not produce a single witness who could or would testify: that he had spoken to defendant or heard him speak to anyone; that he had purchased, or seen anyone purchase, heroin from him; that he saw him transfer heroin to anyone or have any heroin in his possession; that he saw the defendant in possession of marked and identified money used to purchase heroin or saw him sell or deliver heroin to anyone; appellant insists that it was error to deny his motion for acquittal. In further support of his claim, he points to the undisputed, indeed the admitted fact that the only testimony relied on at the trial as tending to implicate defendant in the crimes charged was the hearsay statements, admitted over defendant's repeated objections, of the co-defendant Giardina who pleaded guilty and of Lena and Carol Giardina, who were named but not indicted as co-conspirators, none of whom testified at the trial and therefore could not be cross-examined.

We agree with the appellant that, under the rule established and prevailing in this court, it was error to overrule his objections to the hearsay testimony of the Giardinas, and that it was error on this record not to direct a verdict in his favor. In Montford v. United States, 5 Cir., 200 F.2d 759, 760, this court thus correctly laid down the rule governing the trial of cases where, as here, it was sought to prove a defendant's connection with a conspiracy or his complicity in a crime by the hearsay statements and declarations of persons named or charged as co-conspirators or accomplices, but not otherwise proven to be such:

Under that rule we think it clear beyond question that the admission of the hearsay testimony fatally impregnated the case with prejudicial and reversible error. In addition, with this evidence excluded and eliminated from the record, the case was completely circumstantial and there was no evidence pointing, with the degree of clarity required for conviction in such cases, to appellant's guilt. It was error, therefore, not to direct an acquittal and because of this error the judgment must be reversed with directions to acquit.

The United States, in an attempt to demonstrate that the evidence was sufficient to convict appellant, undertakes, as it declares, "to set out without including therein any of the hearsay matters, a statement of the evidence in the case". A reading of this statement, as its brief sets it out, will, we think, demonstrate that it has not done, it cannot do, this. Leaving the hearsay testimony out of consideration destroys the case in fact. Taking it into consideration destroys it in law. To see that this is so, it is only necessary to look at the case as the government sets it out on page 13 of its brief. There it is stated:

Unfortunately for the government's case, this is not, it cannot on this record be, so. It is true, as the government points out on page 10 of its brief: that there was testimony that an agent saw Giardina go into a place where he spoke to Panci; that he saw Panci and Giardina leave the store; that he saw them sit on stools next to each other at the Toddle House cafe; that while they were sitting there drinking coffee, the defendant withdrew his left hand from his pocket and passed a small brown paper bag behind his back to Giardina; and that they thereafter left the Toddle House and returned to the barbecue stand. It is true, too, that there was testimony: that Picini gave Giardina $1,050 for the purchase of three ounces of heroin; and that sometime afterward Giardina went into his own house and took one ounce of heroin from the total of three in a brown paper bag. The record does not support the government's contention that the brown paper bag from which the heroin was taken was identified by anyone as the one given Giardina by defendant. If it did, this would not be important. What is important here is that no one testified that the brown paper bag given Giardina by defendant had narcotics in it when it was given to him. In short, the testimony of the government agent that Giardina was seen with Panci and that Panci passed a paper bag to him was wholly insufficient to establish his guilt. While, therefore, the testimony of the government witness well served its purpose of smearing Panci because he was seen associating with Giardina, no evidence whatever was offered to support its claim that Giardina or anyone else obtained heroin from Panci.

Giving the evidence its fullest force, it amounts to no more than that Panci was seen associating with characters of low repute, and, if this conviction is allowed to stand, the result would be to convict him on suspicion. There is a proverb that a man is known by the company he keeps, and another one, "Give a dog a bad name and kill him", but these are not legal principles which will serve to convert inadmissible hearsay into admissible testimony or support a conviction on testimony merely that a defendant is seen in bad company. Kassin v. United States, 5 Cir., 87 F.2d 183. In that case and in other circumstantial evidence cases this court has without wavering declared that the test to be applied is whether the jury might reasonably find that the evidence excluded every reasonable hypothesis except that of guilt, and equally without wavering has applied it. Cf. Vick v. United States, 5 Cir., 216 F.2d 228, and Lloyd v. United States, 5 Cir., 226 F.2d 9, at page 13.

The government might have made out a case if, in the ordinary way so often successfully used in informer type cases, the agents had given the informer marked or otherwise identified money, had searched him carefully before he left on his mission to insure that he had no narcotics concealed on or about him, had kept him in sight at all times so as to exclude his having obtained the narcotics elsewhere, and then made the arrest to find the identified money in the possession of the defendant and the narcotics in that of the informer. Nothing of that kind was done here. Instead the government brought and testified to its case with no more real support in the evidence for a finding of guilt than there was for the finding that a ghost had been seen in the story of the man who said, "My friend saw a ghost eating off a plate at his house last night, and if you don't believe it, here is the plate he says he saw the ghost eating from".

For the failure of the court to grant defendant's motion to direct a verdict, the judgment is reversed with directions to acquit him.