As you may know, Francis E. Dec, Esq. is on his way to becoming the most important paranoid schizophrenic kook of the century. Step aside, all lesser loons, Dec's madness is purer than your watered down silliness. We need not go over Dec's history or wonderfully recorded rants here. If you need to know more about the man, go to Donna Kossy's renowned Kooks Museum, specifically the Francis Dec exhibit. There you can read a brief account of Dec's masterful theories regarding the Gangster Frankenstein Controls, the Eyesight Television, the Earphone Radio, and the Synthetic Nerve Radio Directional Antennae Loop. In 1995 Ean Schuessler, David F. Hanson, and I personally visited the dying genius in the hospital, because we are Parroting Puppet Gangster Slaves of the Computer God and proud of it.

The below document was unearthed by Jeff Sperber, who is a practicing lawyer in New York. Before Dec completely lost his mind, he was a lawyer, too. The below Responent's Brief details Francis Dec's crime and subsequent appeal of forgery, larceny, and fraud which caused his disbarment in 1958. The case was appealed all the way to the Supreme Court, but Francis eventually lost. Suspiciously, Dec's appeal brief was not on file in Nassau County, which may prove the validity of his conspiratorial theories. Due to its legalistic language, the Brief may seem dry, but if you stick with it, you'll discover great insight into the man, the legend, Francis E. Dec. Go to these words for amusement: overwhelming, somewhat difficult, abusive, attack, good character, slanderous, vicious conspiracy.

If you care to contact me, please do. For SPAM PREVENTION PURPOSES, I do not have an active link to my email address. Please write to me at: forrestjackson (no spaces) at hotmail.com. I'd love to hear from anyone else who is fascinated by the Worldwide Containment Policy, the New Fake Starry Sky, or the Inevitability of Gradualness as postulated by Francis Dec.

Defendant appeals from an order of the Supreme Court, Appellate Division, First Department, affirming unanimously a judgment of the Nassau County Court wherein defendant was convicted after a jury trial of Forgery in the Second Degree (two counts), Grand Larceny in the Second Degree and a violation of Section 1820-a, subdivision 2 of the Penal Law (Fraud or Deceit by Notary Public). The indictment was returned by the Grand Jury on February 11, 1958 and trial was held in the Nassau County Court on November 5, 6, 12, 13, 14, 17, 18, 19, and 20, 1958 in the Nassau County Court before the Hon. William J. Sullivan, County Judge of Nassau County, and a jury and the accused was convicted by a verdict of the jury as charged in the pleading.

On December 23, 1958, the appellant was sentenced upon each of his convictions for the crimes of Forgery in the Second Degree (two counts).

Evidence of the defendant’s guilt was overwhelming. Mrs. Wirschning testified in effect that she did not sign the general release or endorse the check and didn’t authorize anyone to sign her name. She also testified that she didn’t receive any money from the defendant in connection with the accident.

Mrs. Wirschning’s husband, Frederick, also testified that he did not sign his wife’s name to the general release and he didn’t endorse his wife’s name on the check, and he did not authorize the defendant to sign his wife’s name to either of the two instruments.

Detective Russell Scott, the handwriting expert for the Nassau County Police Department, testified that in his opinion, Mrs. Wirschning did not sign either the general release or the settlement check and neither did her husband, Frederick.

Defendant contended that Mrs. Wirschning did, in fact, sign both instruments. He contended generally that he kept the proceeds of the settlement check because of a prior debt in relation to legal services rendered Mrs. Wirschning in a separation action and in the alternative, defendant contended that he still had the money and he had been unable to reach Mrs. Wirschning to give her her share of the proceeds of the check.

The jury, by their verdict, unanimously rejected the contentions of the defendant. The jury, by their verdict, have found as a fact that this defendant did utter the forged general release and the forged check and did, in fact, steal the money belonging to his client, Mrs. Wirschning.

The weight of the evidence was reviewed by the Appellate Division, First Department, and the Court unanimously affirmed the judgment of conviction.

The People most respectfully submit to this Court that the evidence was legally established beyond a reasonable doubt.

The defendant’s brief makes it somewhat difficult for this District Attorney to come squarely to grips with the errors which the defendant claims deprived him of a fair trial. We shall do our best to answer all of the objections as we understand them in connection with this trial.

The first two pages of the appellant’s brief would correspond to the statement.

Pages 3 to 5 represents [sic] an outline of the opening to the jury by the trial Assistant District Attorney.

Pages 5 through 13 are devoted to a summary of the defendant’s opening to the jury.

Pages 13 through 15 make reference to certain pre-trial motions. In one instance, the defendant made a motion in the Supreme Court to inspect the Grand Jury minutes and to dismiss the indictment. The order denying the motion to inspect the Grand Jury minutes is not appealable. The motion to dismiss the indictment was made in the Supreme Court but the indictment had already been transferred by order of the Supreme Court to the County Court so the motion to dismiss the indictment was not properly made in the Supreme Court and so it was properly denied.

Thereafter, the defendant made a motion to dismiss the indictment in the County Court which the Court treated as a demurrer. The demurrer was disallowed. The Court will have a copy of the indictment before it on the appeal and it is readily ascertainable that the indictment adequately identifies the crime so as to permit this defendant to know the offense he is charged with and to enable him to prepare for trial. Nowhere does the defendant demonstrate that any of the pretrial orders in relation to the indictment were improperly decided.

On page 15 the defendant commences a discussion under the heading "Judgment contrary to the weight of evidence". Of course, the weight of evidence is a question for the trial jury and the Appellate Division and is not open for consideration by this Court.

Apparently, the first claim of error appears on page 21 if the appellant’s brief wherein defendant contends there was an abusive discretion by the trial Judge whereby defendant was prevented from a thorough cross-examination of some of the People’s witnesses (Defendant’s brief, pp. 21-24). The trial record consists of 991 pages, most of which was taken up by cross-examination. There is absolutely no proof that this defendant was deprived of a fair trial because of any ruling by the trial Judge in relation to cross-examination. Cross-examination in this connection related largely to secondary matters and consequently, the extent of the cross-examination was largely a matter of discretion for the trial Judge. In particular, the defendant claims that he was prevented a full opportunity to cross-examine his former client, Elizabeth Wirschning. The evidence shows that Mrs. Wirschning’s direct examination ran from pages 33 of the record to 63, whereas the cross-examination ran from pages 63 to 249. It could hardly be said that defendant was prevented from cross-examination.

Defendant then discusses the testimony of Dr. Robbins (Defendant’s brief pp. 21-23), with no apparent reason. Nowhere during this discussion does he demonstrate the he was deprived of a fair trial.

Page 23 of the defendant’s brief contains a reference to certain motions for a mistrial and as best we can determine, one of the motions is based upon the representation that the trial Judge testified to the good character of Nat Birchall, who was a court stenographer. The fact of the matter is, the trial Judge did not, at any stage of the proceeding, testify as to the good character of Nat Birchall. In fact, the trial Judge did not testify in relation to any fact. Mr. Birchall was the official court reporter for the Nassau County Court with over thirty years of experience in this capacity. He has transcribed, until his retirement, all of the most important criminal cases prosecuted in the Nassau County Court, many of which have been reviewed by this Court. The unwarranted and unsupported attack on the integrity and reputation of Mr. Birchall as revealed by this record was not justifiable.

Defendant also claims that a motion for mistrial should have been granted because of an adjournment at the outset of the trial (Defendant’s brief, p.25). The record shows that the trial was adjourned from Thursday, November 6th until Wednesday November 12th (124-127). Other business of the Court made the Friday adjournment necessary and Tuesday was an official holiday, so the trial Judge decided, in his wisdom, to adjourn the case until Wednesday. The adjournment was at the discretion of the trial Judge and there is absolutely no showing that there was an abuse or that the adjournment deprived this defendant of a fair trial.

Defendant once again turns his attack on Nat Birchall, the official court stenographer, and once again contends the Birchall’s stenographic notes should not have been received into evidence (Defendant’s brief, pp. 26-27). The substance of the defendant’s claim (Defendant’s brief, pp. 24-27). Is that Nat Birchall forged or altered the transcript of the examination of the defendant conducted by the Assistant District Attorney, Edward Robinson. Birchall denied that he altered the minutes and there was absolutely not one scintilla of evidence to controvert this evidence except the unsupported and uncorroborated testimony of the defendant, himself. Birchall’s part in the case and in particular, the authenticity or correctness of the transcript of the Question and Answer statement of the defendant was, at best, a question of fact for the jury. The trial jury have resolved this question of fact against the defendant and he has failed to demonstrate that the trial jury were in error.

The next claim of error is that Arthur Nixon, the trial Assistant District Attorney, during he summation told the jury that Birchall’s recorded statements of the defendant constitute a confession (Defendant’s brief, pp. 27-29). The fact is the District Attorney did not contend that the defendant had confessed his guilt and this is not a fair implication to draw from the record. The two statements of the defendant which were recorded by Birchall contain some very damaging admissions against interest by the defendant although they do not raise to the level of confession.

Defendant also contends that the trial Court committed reversible error for, like the trial Assistant, they treated Birchall’s recorded statement of the defendant as a confession, when, in truth and in fact, it was not a confession (Defendant’s brief, pp. 28-31). The trial Judge, during the course of instruction, did not specifically label the statements as a confession although he did say (p.949): "With respect to that type of evidence, our law provides that a statement of a defendant, whether in the course of prejudicial proceedings or given to a private person, can be introduced in evidence against him, but that statement alone is not sufficient to warrant a defendant’s conviction without additional proof that the crime charged has been committed." Defendant’s exceptions and requests (pp. 971-976) do not contain any exception to this direction by the trial Judge and under the circumstances of this case, it certainly could not be said that the trial instruction was prejudicial.

Defendant also contends that prejudicial error was committed because the prosecution failed to call Dr. Azzara, who is the family physician of the Wirschnings and who, incidentally, examined Mrs. Wirschning as a result of the accident that led to this prosecution. Defendant also claims that prejudice occurred because the People failed to call Detective Alva Becker and finally, he was deprived of a fair trial because the People failed to call James D. C. Murray, who, according to the defendant, is "an old Nassau County lawyer and friend of Frank Gulotta" (Defendant’s brief p. 35)and who, in this case, appeared to represent Dr. Robbins.

All of these witnesses were readily available to the defendant and if he wanted to prove a fact through any one of the three witnesses, he was free to call them to testify. As the case developed before the jury, there was no necessity for the People to call Mr. Murray or Detective Becker or, for that matter, Dr. Azzara. The claim that the People represented to the jury that these witnesses had testified for the People and proved a fact against the defendant is not borne out by the trial record.

Defendant contends that the instruction was unlawful in that the trial Judge improperly marshaled the evidence. The People contend the trial Judge discussed the evidence and both summarized and marshaled the evidence in a way that was both complete and fair to the accused (951-959).

Defendant also claims the instruction is defective in that the trial Judge failed to instruct the jury on the effect of character evidence. In this connection the defendant contends that he took the stand and testified as to his own good character. It is our understanding of the law that a defendant does not necessarily put his character at issue by testifying and the general rule is that if the defendant wishes to have his character weighed in determining his innocence, he may produce evidence of his good character by calling qualified witnesses who can testify to his good reputation in the community. There was no testimony in the record by the defendant himself and certainly no testimony by others called by the defendant as to his reputation in the community. Accordingly, it would seem that the trial Judge made no mistake in omitting to instruct the jury in the effect of character testimony on the outcome of the trial.

In a similar vein, defendant also contends that the trial Court committed prejudicial error in failing to charge as to the bad character of the People’s witnesses. The People most respectfully submit the trial record reveals a slanderous attempt by this appellant to destroy by innuendo and suggestion Mrs. Wirschning and everyone else connected with the trial or the investigation. The outrageous charges made by this defendant regarding the reputation or character of the Wirschnings or the public officials are unsupported and without any basis in fact. There is not one scintilla of evidence available to prove the bad character of the Wirschnings or any other witness who testified against the accused.

Defendant also argues generally that error was committed in denying certain of the defendant’s requests to charge. The People contend the trial Judge ruled properly in each case. Either the substance of the charge had already been covered or the request was clearly improper.

Finally, the defendant contends that the record of the trial was fraudulently altered by the Court reporter, who, in this instance, is Michael Wowk and that his conviction was brought about by a vicious conspiracy including District Attorney Frank Gulotta and the Chief Assistant, Edward Robinson, both of whom were paid off with a Supreme Court judgeship.

There is no support in the proof for these allegations.

This defendant had a fair trial. The trial Judge gave the accused what amounted to almost unlimited leeway in conducting his trial. His contentions were fairly presented to the jury and the issue of fact has been clearly and fairly resolved against him.

In conclusion, the judgments appealed from should be affirmed.

Holy Frankenstein Controls, it's so obvious that They were out to get him! Poor Francis E. Dec, Esq.