UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Michael Kent POLAND and Patrick Gene Poland, Defendants-Appellants

Michael Kent Poland (Mike) and Patrick Gene Poland (Pat), brothers, appeal from separate judgments entered in the United States District Court for the District of Arizona convicting each of five counts of robbery in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113 (a) and two counts of kidnapping in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2113 (e). A jury had found the defendants guilty on all of these counts. The two defendants had been indicted jointly and tried together. We affirm the judgments of conviction.

1.

On May 24, 1977, two-driver-guards left Phoenix driving a Purolator Security, Inc. van containing currency for delivery to a number of banks in Northern Arizona. The run they were to make was routinely made every Tuesday morning leaving at seven o’clock. Beginning on Interstate Highway 17, the drivers were to drive the van north from Phoenix; their first delivery was to be to a bank in Prescott, about a hundred miles away. The van never got to Prescott. It was found the next morning, abandoned near the Bumble Bee turnoff from Highway 17, about 50 miles north of Phoenix. The currency was missing from the van.

On June 16, 1977, the body of one of the drivers was found floating in Lake Mead,* about 300…