Turner v. United States (396 U.S. 398)/Dissent Black

by Hugo Black

United States Supreme Court

396 U.S. 398

Turner  v.  United States (396 U.S. 398)

 Argued: Oct. 15, 1969. --- Decided: Jan 20, 1970

Mr. Justice BLACK, with whom Mr. Justice DOUGLAS joins, dissenting.

Few if any decisions of this Court have done more than this one today to undercut and destroy the due process safeguards the federal Bill of Rights specifically provides to protect defendants charged with crime in United States courts. Among the accused's Bill of Rights' guarantees that the Court today weakens are:

1. His right not to be compelled to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury;

2. The right to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation against him;

3. The right not to be compelled to be a witness against himself;

4. The right not to be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law;

5. The right to be confronted with the witnesses against him;

6. The right to compulsory process for obtaining witnesses for his defense;

8. The right to trial by an impartial jury.

The foregoing rights are among those that the Bill of Rights specifically spells out and that due process requires that a defendant charged with crime must be accorded. The Framers of our Constitution and Bill of Rights were too wise, too pragmatic, and too familiar with tyranny to attempt to safeguard personal liberty with broad, flexible words and phrases like 'fair trial,' 'fundamental decency,' and 'reasonableness.' Such stretchy, rubberlike terms would have left judges constitutionally free to try people charged with crime under will-o'-the-wisp standards improvised by different judges for different defendants. Neither the Due Process Clause nor any other constitutional language vests any judge with such power. Our Constitution was not written in the sands to be washed away by each wave of new judges blown in by each successive political wind that brings new political administrations into temporary power. Rather, our Constitution was fashioned to perpetuate liberty and justice by marking clear, explicit, and lasting constitutional boundaries for trials. One need look no further than the language of that sacred document itself to be assured that defendants charged with crime are to be accorded due process of law-that is, they are to be tried as the Constitution and the laws passed pursuant to it prescribe and not under arbitrary procedures that a particular majority of sitting judges may see fit to label as 'fair' or 'decent.' I wholly, completely, and permanently reject the so-called 'activist' philosophy of some judges which leads them to construe our Constitution as meaning what they now think it should mean in the interest of 'fairness and decency' as they see it. This case and the Court's holding in it illustrate the dangers inherent in such an 'activist' philosophy.

Commercial traffic in deadly mind-, soul-, and body-destroying drugs is beyond doubt one of the greatest evils of our time. It cripples intellects, dwarfs bodies, paralyzes the progress of a substantial segment of our society, and frequently makes hopeless and sometimes violent and murderous criminals of persons of all ages who become its victims. Such consequences call for the most vigorous laws to suppress the traffic as well as the most powerful efforts to put these vigorous laws into effect. Unfortunately, grave evils such as the narcotics traffic can too easily cause threats to our basic liberties by making attractive the adoption of constitutionally forbidden shortcuts that might suppress and blot out more quickly the unpopular and dangerous conduct. That is exactly the course I think the Court is sanctioning today. I shall now set out in more detail why I believe this to be true.

Count 1 of the indictment against Turner, as the Court's opinion asserts, and as I agree,

'charged Turner with (1) knowingly receiving, concealing, and transporting heroin which (2) was illegally imported and which (3) he knew was illegally imported. * * * For conviction, it was necessary for the Government to prove each of these three elements of the crime to the satisfaction of the jury beyond a reasonable doubt.' Ante, at 405.

The Court in the above statement is merely reaffirming the fundamental constitutional principle that the accused is presumed innocent until he is proved guilty and that the Government, before it can secure a conviction, must demonstrate to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt each essential element of the alleged offense. This basic principle is clearly reflected in several provisions of the Bill of Rights. The Fifth and Sixth Amendments provide that as a part of due process of law a person held for criminal prosecution shall be charged on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury and that the defendant shall 'be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation.' The purpose of these requirements is obviously to compel the Government to state and define specifically what it must prove in order to convict the defendant so that he can intelligently prepare to defend himself on each of the essential elements of the charge. And to aid the accused in making his defense to the charges thus defined, the Bill of Rights provides the accused explicit guarantees-the privilege against self-incrimination, the right to counsel, the right to confront witnesses against him, and to call witnesses in his own behalf-all designed to assure that the jury will as nearly as humanly possible be able to consider fully all the evidence and determine the truth of every case.

Having invoked the above principles, however, the Court then proceeds to uphold Turner's conviction under Count 1 despite the fact that the prosecution introduced absolutely no evidence at trial on two of the three essential elements of the crime. To show this I think one need look no further than the Court's own opinion. The Court says:

'The proof was that Turner had knowingly possessed heroin; since it is illegal to import heroin or to manufacture it here, he was also chargeable with knowing that his heroin had an illegal source. For all practical purposes, this was the Government's case.' Ante, at 405.

'Whatever course the jury took, it found Turner guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and the question on review is the sufficiency of the evidence, or more precisely, the soundness of inferring guilt from proof of possession alone.' Ante, at 407. (Emphasis added.)

These passages show that the Government wholly failed to meet its burden of proof at trial on two of the elements Congress deemed essential to the crime it defined. The prosecution introduced no evidence to prove either (1) that the heroin involved was illegally imported or (2) that Turner knew the heroin was illegally imported. The evidence showed only that Turner was found in possession or heroin.

I do not think a reviewing court should permit to stand a conviction as wholly lacking in evidentiary support as is Turner's conviction under Count 1. Bozza v. United States, 330 U.S. 160, 67 S.Ct. 645, 91 L.Ed. 818 (1947). See also Thompson v. City of Louisville, 362 U.S. 199, 80 S.Ct. 624, 4 L.Ed.2d 654 (1960). When the evidence of a crime is insufficient as a matter of law, as the evidence here plainly is, a reversal of the conviction is in accord with the historic principle that 'independent trial judges and independent appellate judges have a most important place under our constitutional plan since they have power to set aside convictions.' United States ex rel. Toth v. Quarles, 350 U.S. 11, 19, 76 S.Ct. 1, 6, 100 L.Ed. 8 (1955). I would therefore reverse Turner's conviction under Count 1 without further ado. Moreover, as the majority opinion and the record in this case indicate, petitioner's convictions under Counts 3 and 4 are also based upon totally insufficient evidence, for as in Count 1 the prosecution failed to introduce any evidence to support certain essential elements of the crimes charged under these counts. They, too, should be reversed for lack of evidence.

The Court atempts to take the stark nakedness of the evidence against Turner on these counts and clothe it in 'presumptions' or 'inferences' authorized by 21 U.S.C. § 174 and 26 U.S.C. § 4704(a). Apparently the Court feels that the Government can be relieved of the constitutional burden of proving the essential elements of its case by a mere congressional declaration that certain evidence shall be deemed sufficient to convict. Such an idea seems to me to be totally at variance with what the Constitution requires. Congress can undoubtedly create crimes and define their elements, but it cannot under our Constitution even partially remove from the prosecution the burden of proving at trial each of the elements it has defined. The fundamental right of the defendant to be presumed innocent is swept away to precisely the extent judges and juries rely upon the statutory presumptions of guilt found in 21 U.S.C. § 174 and 26 U.S.C. § 4704(a). And each of the weapons given by the Bill of Rights to the criminal accused to defend his innocence-the right to counsel, the right to confront the witnesses against him and to subpoena witnesses in his favor, the privilege against self-incrimination-is nullified to the extent that the Government to secure a conviction does not have to introduce any evidence to support essential allegations of the indictment it has brought. It would be a senseless and stupid thing for the Constitution to take all these precautions to protect the accused from governmental abuses if the Government could by some sleight-of-hand trick with presumptions make nullities of those precautions. Such a result would completely frustrate the purpose of the Founders to establish a system of criminal justice in which the accused-even the poorest and most humble-would be able to protect himself from wrongful charges by a big and powerful government. It is little less than fantastic even to imagine that those who wrote our Constitution and the Bill of Rights intended to have a government that could create crimes of several separate and independent parts and then relieve the government of proving a portion of them. Of course, within certain broad limits it is not necessary for Congress to define a crime to include any particular set of elements. But if it does, constitutional due process requires the Government to prove each element beyond a reasonable doubt before it can convict the accused of the crime it deliberately and clearly defined. Turner's trial therefore reminds me more of Daniel being cast into the lion's den than it does of a constitutional proceeding. The Bible tells us Daniel was saved by a miracle, but when this Court says its final word in this case today, we cannot expect a miracle to save petitioner Turner.

I would have more hesitation in setting aside these jury verdicts for insufficiency of the evidence were I confident that the jury had been allowed to make a free and unhampered determination of guilt or innocence as the jury trial provisions of Article III of the Constitution and the Sixth Amendment require. The right to trial by jury includes the right to have the jury and the jury alone find the facts of the case, including the cruical fact of guilt or innocence. See, e.g., United States ex rel. Toth v. Quarles, 350 U.S. 11, 15-19, 76 S.Ct. 1, 4-6, 100 L.Ed. 8 (1955). This right to have the jury determine guilt or innocence necessarily includes the right to have that body decide whether the evidence presented at trial is sufficient to convict. Turner's convictions on each count were secured only after the jury had been explicitly instructed by the trial judge that proof of Turner's mere possession of heroin and cocaine 'shall be deemed sufficient evidence to authorize conviction' under 21 U.S.C. § 174, and 'shall be prima facie evidence of a violation' of 26 U.S.C. § 4704(a). App. 15-18. In my view, these instructions to the jury impermissibly interfered with the defendant's Sixth Amendment right to have the jury determine when evidence is sufficient to justify a finding of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The instructions directing the jury to presume guilt in this case were not, of course, the trial judge's own inspiration. Congress, in enacting the statutory presumptions purporting to define and limit the quantum of evidence necessary to convict, has injected its own views and controls into the guilt-determining, fact-finding process vested by our Constitution exclusively in the Judicial Branch of our Government. The Fifth Amendment's command that cases be tried according to due process of law includes the accused's right to have his case tried by a judge and a jury in a court of law without legislative constraint or interference. These statutory presumptions clear violate the command of that Amendment. Congress can declare a crime, but it must leave the trial of that crime to the courts. See Leary v. United States, 395 U.S. 6, 55, 89 S.Ct. 1532, 1558, 23 L.Ed.2d 57 (1969), (concurring in result); and United States v. Gainey, 380 U.S. 63, 84-85, 85 S.Ct. 754, 766-767, 13 L.Ed.2d 658 (1965) (dissenting opinion).

It is my belief that these statutory presumptions are totally unconstitutional for yet another reason, and it is a critically important one. As discussed earlier, the Constitution requires that the defendant in a criminal case be presumed innocent and it places the burden of proving guilt squarely on the Government. Statutory presumptions such as those involved in this case rob the defendant of at least part of his presumed innocence and cast upon him the burden of proving that he is not guilty. The presumption in 21 U.S.C. § 174 makes this shift in the burden of proof explicit. It provides that possession of narcotic drugs shall be deemed sufficient evidence to justify a conviction 'unless the defendant explains the possession to the satisfaction of the jury.' However, so far as robbing the defendant of his presumption of innocence is concerned, it makes no difference whether the statute explicitly says the defendant can rebut the presumption of guilt (as does the provision of 21 U.S.C. § 174 just quoted), or whether the statute simply uses the language of 'prima facie case' and leaves implicit the ossibility of the defendant's rebutting the presumption (as does 26 U.S.C. § 4704(a)). Presumptions of both forms tend to coerce and compel the defendant into taking the witness stand in his own behalf, in clear violation of the accused's Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. This privilege has been consistently interpreted to establish the defendant's absolute right not to testify at his own trial unless he freely chooses to do so. As we observed in Malloy v. Hogan, 378 U.S. 1, 8, 84 S.Ct. 1489, 1493, 12 L.Ed.2d 653 (1964), the privilege is fulfilled only when the person is guaranteed 'the right * * * to remain silent unless he chooses to speak in the unfettered exercise of his own will * * *.' The defendant's right to free and unfettered choice in whether or not to testify is effectively destroyed by the coercive effect of the statutory presumptions found in 21 U.S.C. § 174 and 26 U.S.C. § 4704(a). See United States v. Gainey, 380 U.S. 63, 71-74, 87, 85 S.Ct. 754, 759 761, 768 (1965) (dissenting opinions). Moreover, when the defendant declines to testify and the trial judge states to the jury as he did in this case that evidence of possession of narcotics shall be deemed sufficient to convict 'unless the defendant explains the possession to the satisfaction of the jury,' such an instruction is nothing less than judicial comment upon the defendant's failure to testify, a practice that we held violative of the Self-Incrimination Clause in Griffin v. California, 380 U.S. 609, 95 S.Ct. 1229, 14 L.Ed.2d 106 (1965).

How does the Court respond to the grave constitutional problems raised by these presumptions of guilt? It says only that these presumptions are, in its view, 'reasonable' or factually supportable 'beyond a reasonable doubt.' In other words, the Court has concluded that the presumptions are 'fair' and apparently thinks that is a sufficient answer. It matters not to today's majority that the evidence that it cites to show the factual basis of the presumptions was never introduced at petitioner's trial, and that petitioner was never given an opportunity to confront before the jury the many expert witnesses now arrayed against him in the footnotes of the Court's opinion. Nor does it apparently matter to the Court that the fact-finding role it undertakes today is constitutionally vested not in this Court but in the jury. If Congress wants to make simple possession of narcotics an offense, I believe it has power to do so. But this Court has no such constitutional power. Nor has Congress the power to relieve the prosecution of the burden of proving all the facts that it as a legislative body deems crucial to the offenses it creates.

For the reasons stated here, I would without hesitation reverse petitioner's convictions under Counts 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Notes