(Download) "United States v. Hedman" by Seventh Circuit United States Court of Appeals # Book PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: United States v. Hedman
- Author : Seventh Circuit United States Court of Appeals
- Release Date : January 03, 1981
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 59 KB
Description
Defendants Hedman, Jercich, Karnick and Larsen appeal from the district court's action denying without a hearing their request for a new trial on the basis of newly discovered evidence. Defendants are former Chicago building inspection supervisors. In 1978, following a joint trial, a jury found them guilty of violating various federal statutes by extorting money from city building contractors and failing to report the illegal gains on their federal income tax returns.1 The convictions were upheld on appeal, 630 F.2d 1184 (7th Cir. 1980), cert. denied, 450 U.S. 965, 101 S. Ct. 1481, 67 L. Ed. 2d 614 (1981). Defendants asked the district court for a new trial because they say new evidence shows the prosecution introduced a falsified document in its case against them, and coerced a witness to testify falsely on behalf of the government. Judge Bua, who presided at the original trial, denied the request for a new trial after receiving from the government an answer to the request.2 We affirm. Defendants first contend that they are entitled to a hearing on their claim that the government used a falsified document to support its case. The document is a business diary kept by one of the building contractors who made illegal payments to defendants. The diary details the amount and recipient of each payment. Prior to trial, the prosecution submitted for chemical analysis two pages of the diary about which there was some question as to authenticity. One of the pages appeared to be a hand copied duplicate of the other, with certain changes. The analysis revealed that some of the ink used to obliterate a name on one of the pages was a type first manufactured well after the date on which the diary entries purportedly were made.