United States v. James Louis Buie, 538 F.2d 545, 4th Cir. (1976)
United States v. James Louis Buie, 538 F.2d 545, 4th Cir. (1976)
2d 545
Immediately after counsel's closing argument, the district judge instructed the
jury. The charge embodied substantial comment on the evidence. At the close
of the charge, the following colloquy took place between Buie's counsel and the
district judge while the jury was still seated in the box:
THE COURT: Are there any special instructions, gentlemen, that you'd like for me
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to give, or have I done fair and described them by both? (sic)
4MR. VAN CAMP: If Your Honor please, may I approach the bench?
5THE COURT: You may speak right there.
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Buie's counsel then requested, and the court delivered, a limiting instruction on
the use of evidence of prior convictions. After this further instruction, the
district judge directed the jury to retire and in the same breath called the next
case.
While the record does not disclose what, if any, other objections counsel might
have made if permitted to speak out of the hearing or out of presence of the
jury, before us Buie's counsel argues that the district court's summary of his
contentions contained factual inaccuracies, omitted the defense's theory of the
case, and was substantially shorter than the corresponding summary of the
government's contentions. While we would hesitate to be overly exacting in
scrutinizing a district judge's summary of the evidence, cf. United States v.
Kahaner, 317 F.2d 459, 476-82 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 375 U.S. 836, 84 S.Ct. 74,
11 L.Ed.2d 65 (1963), an appropriate objection might have elicited a
correction, or a cautionary instruction such as the one approved in Kahaner and
absent here:
8 any reference by me does not accord with your recollection, you will disregard
(I)f
entirely what I have said and be guided by your own independent recollection. Id. at
479.
II.
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On the record before us, we cannot say that no prejudice resulted from the
district judge's failure to allow Buie's counsel to approach the bench before the
jury retired. Indeed, there is every indication that counsel was denied the
opportunity to minimize the district judge's errors in the statement of the
evidence, and this constituted actual prejudice. Thus, the judgment must be
reversed and the case remanded for a new trial.
III.
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In United States v. Inman, 352 F.2d 954 (4 Cir. 1965), we held that the
voluntariness of a confession must be shown beyond a reasonable doubt and
that, even if the district court determines that the confession is admissible, the
question of its voluntariness must be submitted to the jury.
13admitted, the court should instruct the jury, whether requested or not, upon the
If
law governing the use of a confession. . . . Included would be a forthright caution
that before giving any weight to the confession, the jury must be satisfied beyond a
reasonable doubt that it had been made by the accused uninfluenced by promise of
reward, threat of injury or diminution of his rights (emphasis added). Id. at 956.
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In this circuit, there are two stages involved in admitting a confession. First, the
court has to admit it into evidence. In Johnson, we decided that the court should
be satisfied by a preponderance of the evidence that the confession is voluntary
before allowing the jury to consider it. The second stage is the jury
consideration of the confession, and, as the majority points out, "The jury must
be satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that it had been made by the accused
uninfluenced by promise of reward, threat of injury, or diminution of his
rights."
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Since the jury was not so charged, I would grant a new trial on this account.