United States v. Benjamin E. Samaniego

Defendant-appellant, Benjamin E. Sa-maniego, was charged with aiding and abetting Edwin Leo Busch, who was charged with the robbery of a National Bank while using a hand gun ( 18 U.S.C. § 2113 (a) (d)). Codefendant Busch entered a plea of guilty to the lesser included offense ( 18 U.S.C. § 2113 (a)). Appellant waived a jury, and was tried and found guilty of aiding and abetting Busch in commission of the lesser included offense ( 18 U.S.C. § 2 and 18 U. S. C. § 2113 (a)).

Appellant urges three errors on appeal —the insufficiency of the evidence to convict; the alleged bias on the part of the trial judge; and the alleged refusal of the trial judge to permit counsel for defendant to see all of the probation report.

We find none of the errors urged have merit, and we affirm.

I.

Of course, mere knowledge of the crime, or mere presence at the scene of it, is not sufficient evidence to convict a defendant of knowingly participating in a crime.

In United States v. Brown, 436 F.2d 702 (12/23/70), this Court recently said:

Were we to change the plural “individuals” to “individual”, the “Credit Union” to “bank”, and “Volkswagen” to “green Toyota,” the facts in the Brown case would be…