Anthony Joseph Munich v. United States

Two years ago this court, on an appeal after a 28 U.S.C. § 2255 hearing, directed that Munich’s prior plea of guilty to a narcotics charge, the judgment and the sentence all be vacated for the reason that the court did not believe the government had sustained its burden of proof that the plea was voluntarily made with the understanding of the mandatory sentence consequences in a case such as Munich’s. Munich v. United States, 9 Cir., 337 F.2d 356 .

The government thereupon chose to tidy up its original indictment by dismissing the old one and reindicting Munich. Upon a trial Munich was convicted. He appeals.

His one substantial point not really precluded by prior decisions of this court or of the Supreme Court of the United States is that at the trial the government could not produce the narcotics which Munich was charged with selling. The heroin which was the subject of the sale had been regularly destroyed or disposed of in accordance with established procedures and statutes applicable when presumptively narcotics are no longer needed as evidence. Thus, we have a corpus delicti problem, or a half brother of one.

The government produced good evidence as to nature of what…