Hugo Black

“ Congress, in enacting the statutory presumptions purporting to define and limit the quantum of evidence necessary to convict, has injected its own views and controls into the guilt-determining, fact-finding process vested by our Constitution exclusively in the Judicial Branch of our Government. The Fifth Amendment's command that cases be tried according to due process of law includes the accused's right to have his case tried by a judge and a jury in a court of law without legislative constraint or interference. ”

“ And each of the weapons given by the Bill of Rights to the criminal accused to defend his innocence-the right to counsel, the right to confront the witnesses against him and to subpoena witnesses in his favor, the privilege against self-incrimination-is nullified to the extent that the Government to secure a conviction does not have to introduce any evidence to support essential allegations of the indictment it has brought. ”

“ It matters not to today's majority that the evidence that it cites to show the factual basis of the presumptions was never introduced at petitioner's trial, and that petitioner was never given an opportunity to confront before the jury the many expert witnesses now arrayed against him in the footnotes of the Court's opinion. Nor does it apparently matter to the Court that the fact-finding role it undertakes today is constitutionally vested not in this Court but in the jury. If Congress wants to make simple possession of narcotics an offense, I believe it has power to do so. ”

“ I would have more hesitation in setting aside these jury verdicts for insufficiency of the evidence were I confident that the jury had been allowed to make a free and unhampered determination of guilt or innocence as the jury trial provisions of Article III of the Constitution and the Sixth Amendment require. The right to trial by jury includes the right to have the jury and the jury alone find the facts of the case, including the cruical fact of guilt or innocence. ”

“ When the evidence of a crime is insufficient as a matter of law, as the evidence here plainly is, a reversal of the conviction is in accord with the historic principle that 'independent trial judges and independent appellate judges have a most important place under our constitutional plan since they have power to set aside convictions.' United States ex rel. Toth v. Quarles, 350 U.S. 11, 19, 76 S.Ct. 1, 6, 100 L.Ed. 8 (1955) . I would therefore reverse Turner's conviction under Count 1 without further ado. ”

“ Such an idea seems to me to be totally at variance with what the Constitution requires. Congress can undoubtedly create crimes and define their elements, but it cannot under our Constitution even partially remove from the prosecution the burden of proving at trial each of the elements it has defined. The fundamental right of the defendant to be presumed innocent is swept away to precisely the extent judges and juries rely upon the statutory presumptions of guilt found in 21 U.S.C. § 174 and 26 U.S.C. § 4704 (a) . ”

“ This case and the Court's holding in it illustrate the dangers inherent in such an 'activist' philosophy.
Commercial traffic in deadly mind-, soul-, and body-destroying drugs is beyond doubt one of the greatest evils of our time. It cripples intellects, dwarfs bodies, paralyzes the progress of a substantial segment of our society, and frequently makes hopeless and sometimes violent and murderous criminals of persons of all ages who become its victims. ”

“ Unfortunately, grave evils such as the narcotics traffic can too easily cause threats to our basic liberties by making attractive the adoption of constitutionally forbidden shortcuts that might suppress and blot out more quickly the unpopular and dangerous conduct. ”

“ These passages show that the Government wholly failed to meet its burden of proof at trial on two of the elements Congress deemed essential to the crime it defined. The prosecution introduced no evidence to prove either (1) that the heroin involved was illegally imported or (2) that Turner knew the heroin was illegally imported. The evidence showed only that Turner was found in possession or heroin.
I do not think a reviewing court should permit to stand a conviction as wholly lacking in evidentiary support as is Turner's conviction under Count 1. ”