## Facts

- Ernest Franklin Alexander and Leonard Lee Robinson were federally indicted for (1) taking a mailed letter containing a U.S. Treasury check and (2) possessing the check knowing it was stolen from the mail.
- Greenville County deputies approached Alexander and Robinson on a roadside after a tip; Robinson fled and was caught, while Alexander complied and sat in a patrol car.
- A deputy testified he saw Alexander drop or throw a check from the patrol car; the deputy recovered it and gave it to a U.S. postal inspector.
- The government relied on circumstantial evidence to link the recovered check to a Treasury check mailed to Sammie W. Woodall that she expected but did not receive.
- The postal inspector made a thermofax copy of the check; the copy did not reproduce the payee name and address.
- Using the original check, the inspector typed the missing payee and address information onto the copy.
- The inspector returned the original check to Woodall so it could be negotiated; the government did not retain the original for trial.
- At trial, the government introduced the completed copy and elicited oral testimony describing the original check’s contents to establish that the check was Woodall’s and had been stolen from the mail.
- Alexander objected that the copy and testimony were inadmissible under the best evidence rule.
- The district court dismissed the taking-from-mail count as to Alexander; the jury convicted him on the knowing-possession count.

## Issues

1. Whether the district court violated the best evidence rule by admitting a thermofax copy with typed additions and oral testimony to prove the Treasury check’s material contents without producing the original or adequately explaining its nonproduction.
2. Whether the challenged evidence was used merely for identification or instead to prove substantive, material terms of the check central to elements of the offense.
3. Whether any best-evidence error was harmless given the circumstantial nature of the government’s proof.

## Decision

- The Fourth Circuit reversed the conviction and remanded for a new trial.
- The court held that the check’s contents were material to proving that the recovered check was the one mailed to Woodall and stolen from the mail.
- The court held that admitting secondary evidence (the altered copy and oral testimony) without producing the original or establishing a sufficient excuse for its absence violated the best evidence rule.
- The court concluded the error was prejudicial because the government’s case depended heavily on the improperly admitted proof of the check’s contents.

## Legal Principles

- When a party seeks to prove the contents of a writing and those contents are material, the original must be produced unless the proponent establishes a legally sufficient reason for nonproduction.
- Secondary evidence (including copies and oral descriptions) of a document’s contents is inadmissible absent a proper foundation showing the original is unavailable through no sufficient fault of the proponent.
- A document is not treated as merely “identification” evidence when its substantive terms are used to prove elements of the charged offense.
- Best-evidence violations warrant reversal when the improperly admitted secondary evidence supplies essential links in an otherwise circumstantial case.

## Conclusion

The Fourth Circuit ordered a new trial because the prosecution proved central elements by using an incomplete copy supplemented with typed additions and witness descriptions of a Treasury check’s contents, without producing the original check or giving an adequate justification for its absence, contrary to the best evidence rule.


United States v. Alexander, 326 F.2d 736 (4th Cir. 1964)