United States v. Larry William Pratt

(dissenting):

I respectfully dissent. While I must concede that the arguments made by the Government in its Petition for Rehearing are far more persuasive than those earlier made by the prosecution, I cannot join Judge Wright in his defection from our original majority opinion. In retrospect, I *399 can acknowledge that our original opinion, written by me, was too severe in its criticism of the prosecutor and should have attributed to the district judge more of the responsibility for the regrettable impropriety with respect to the display of the inadmissible weapon.

The sole issue in Pratt’s trial was his identification as the robber, and the Government’s principal evidence against him consisted of eyewitness testimony from bank employees and customers. As is often true of eyewitness identifications in bank robbery trials, the identifications of Pratt were not entirely free from question. In defense, Pratt called several alibi witnesses, all of whom were either his relatives or close friends. The task for the jury was the difficult but common one of assessing the relative credibilities of different witnesses giving contradictory testimony.

Among Pratt’s contentions on this…

Larry William Pratt appeals from his conviction on October 25, 1973, for two bank robberies with a dangerous weapon, 18 U.S.C. § 2113 (a) and (d), after a jury trial in the Central District of California. He claimed that errors at his trial in the admission of evidence and misconduct of the prosecutor required a reversal of the verdict. The panel which heard the appeal held, on March 10, 1975, with one judge dissenting, that two errors in the conduct of the trial required a new trial: the exhibition to the jury of a gun during the examination of a witness and the failure to allow preliminary examination of an expert witness regarding photographic evidence, all of which was eventually stricken. Thereafter, the government moved for a rehearing. Upon further consideration we grant the motion for a rehearing, vacate the opinion of the Court filed on March 10, 1975, and affirm the convictions.

The government produced substantial direct evidence that Pratt was the robber of the Bank of America branch in Santa Fe Springs, California, at about 11:30 a.m. on June 6, 1973, and that shortly over an hour later, at about 12:40 p.m., he was also the robber of the Crocker National Bank…

531 F.2d 395 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Larry William PRATT, Defendant-Appellant. No. 74--1859. United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. Jan. 26, 1976. Jerome S. Stanley, Sacramento, Cal., for defendant-appellant. Darrell W. MacIntyre, Asst. U.S. Atty., Los Angeles, Cal., for plaintiff-appellee; William D. Keller, U.S. Atty., and Eric A. Nobles, Asst. U.S. Atty., Los Angeles, Cal., on the brief. OPINION Before LUMBARD, * ELY and WRIGHT, Circuit Judges. LUMBARD, Circuit Judge: 1 Larry William Pratt appeals from his conviction on October 25, 1973, for two bank robberies with a dangerous weapon, 18 U.S.C. § 2113 (a) and (d), after a jury trial in the Central District of California. He claimed that errors at his trial in the admission of evidence and misconduct of the prosecutor required a reversal of the verdict. The panel which heard the appeal held, on March 10, 1975, with one judge dissenting, that two errors in the conduct of the trial required a new trial: the exhibition to the jury of a gun during the examination of a witness and the failure to allow preliminary examination of an expert witness regarding photographic evidence, all of which was…