Doan

Doan appeals from a judgment upon a verdict finding him guilty of perjury, subornation of perjury and obstruction of justice. In January, 1950, in the Southern District of California, the Grand Jury returned an indictment against the appellant and fifteen other defendants charging a conspiracy to violate the narcotics laws of the United States. On Monday, February 27, 1950, Doan appeared in the court at Los Angeles and was arraigned on this indictment. The trial was then set for April 25, 1950. One of the defendants in the indictment, Abraham Davidian, was to be the principal government witness at the trial. On the day following Doan’s arraignment, at some time between the hours of 11 A.M. and 2 P.M., Davidian was shot through the head by some assailant while he was lying on a couch in his home at Fresno, California.

Doan had driven to Los Angeles in his automobile the evening before he was arraigned. He was accompanied by one Arthur Miller. On the morning of February 28, which was the day following the arraignment and the day on which Davidian was shot, Doan and Miller drove north through Bakersfield, Fresno, Merced and on to Oakland. At Fresno they stopped to eat at the…