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414 F.2d 792

Docket No. 12585.

United States v. Thomas

Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals

Submitted June 24, 1969.

Decided Aug. 25, 1969.

Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1969-08-25

2 counsel of record

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Opinion by (per_curiam) · Decided 1969-08-25

How this case has been cited

Cited by 9 later decisions — most recently October 2015

6 federal appellate · 3 state decisions

40196919701980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1Thomas L. Sampson, Baltimore, Md., for appellant.

¶2Stephen H. Sachs, U. S. Atty., and Donald E. Sharpe, Asst. U. S. Atty., for appellee.

¶3Before BOREMAN, BRYAN and WINTER, Circuit Judges.

¶4PER CURIAM:

¶5This case comes before us on the Government’s motion for summary dismissal or, in the alternative, for summary affirmance of the judgment of conviction, pursuant to Rule 27 of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure and Rule 7 (b) of the rules of this court. We treat the motion as one for summary affirmance and uphold the judgment of conviction and sentence entered below.

¶6Thomas asserts three points of error, all directed to the trial court’s charge to the jury. From a reading of the charge as a whole it is quite clear that Thomas’ claims are wholly without merit. He has filed a brief in support of his appeal but much of his argument contained therein is an exercise in semantics and is based upon a fragmentized reading of the charge to the jury.

¶7In his charge the judge defined direct and circumstantial evidence and instructed the jury that the law makes no distinction between the two. To this was added the admonition that guilt in either instance must be proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The court adequately explained the charges against Thomas and defined the elements which the Government was required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt before the jury could return a verdict of guilty.

¶8The appeal from the judgment of conviction is frivolous and the judgment will be summarily affirmed.

¶9Affirmed.

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