Opinion of the Court. 330 U.S. some part of it with the father's knowledge and by his leave. We think the proof is sufficient to comply with the constitutional requirement that two witnesses testify to the overt acts in that group which charges harboring and sheltering of the saboteur. The other group of submitted overt acts as to which it is claimed there is a deficiency of testimony relates to assistance which the defendant rendered to the saboteur in purchasing an automobile as alleged in Acts Nos. 15 and 16 of the indictment. According to the testimony of an automobile salesman, Farrell, the defendant came to his salesroom and said he wanted to buy a good used car of late model. Defendant selected a 1941 model Pontiac and asked about installment payments. After considerable discussion of terms, defendant paid $10 deposit on the price of $1045 and said he would come in next day to make a further payment. He signed an order for the car and gave financial references. On the next day, defendant came to the salesroom and paid an additional $405, executing notes and finance contract. The son took the car and drove it away. A second witness, Vinson, sales manager, corroborated the earlier parts of this transaction, but defendant claims his testimony is not sufficiently comprehensive to comply with the two-witness rule, especially as to overt acts 15 and 16, relating to events of the second day. Vinson at first said he did not see defendant and his son on that day. The trial court allowed counsel to refresh Vinson's recollection from his testimony given at the former trial of defendant. Vinson then testified that he did see the defendant and his son come in together and be together in the salesroom that evening but did not talk with them; that he received "the money that had been put down" on that evening and the note signed by the defendant. By approval of his answers at the former trial he affirmed that 631 Opinion of the Court. he receipted for the money. He also saw the invoice made that evening for the purchase and identified a copy of the bill of sale of the car to the defendant. He testified Farrell was there when the Haupts were. It is said that Vinson's testimony falls short because it is not explicit as to who paid the money. Taking the testimony as a whole, Vinson has corroborated Farrell's testimony that the defendant came that night to the automobile salesroom, that he was accompanied by the saboteur, that a purchase of the automobile had been started and was pending. The partially completed transaction was one in which defendant himself became purchaser, signed his own name to the purchase note and furnished his own, not his son's, financial references. Vinson's testimony shows that this pending transaction was consummated on the latter night. It involved "a further payment in cash toward the purchase" and completing "arrangements for the purchase" which are alleged as the sixteenth act. Vinson said that he received the money. Whoever actually handed over the money, it was apparently in defendant's presence and was paid on account of his obligation incurred the previous evening in signing the purchase contract. The testimony of Vinson in its interpretation most favorable to the jury's verdict seems clearly to have been testimony to the same overt act as that by Farrell. Defendant's counsel made no effort to correct any ambiguity in it by cross-examination. The defense of course is under no duty to do so; it may rely upon weakness in the prosecution's case. But it takes the risk, when it relies on an ambiguity rather than on a complete lack of legal proof, that the jury will resolve the meaning in favor of the prosecution. When enough has been shown to make a case for the jury, we may not impeach the verdict by differing from them on equally reasonable views of a wit Opinion of the Court. 330 U.S. ness' meaning. We think the court was justified in submitting this overt aet and the jury was justified in finding it proved. The Constitution requires testimony to the alleged overt act and is not satisfied by testimony to some separate act from which it can be inferred that the charged act took place. And while two witnesses must testify to the same act, it is not required that their testimony be identical. Most overt acts are not single, separable acts, but are combinations of acts or courses of conduct made up of several elements. It is not easy to set by metes and bounds the permissible latitude between the testimony of the two required witnesses. It is perhaps easier to say on which side of the line a given case belongs than to draw a line that will separate all permissible disparities from forbidden ones. Concrete even if hypothetical cases may illustrate this. Another One witness might hear a report, see a smoking gun in the hand of defendant and see the victim fall. might be deaf, but see the defendant raise and point the gun, and see a puff of smoke from it. The testimony of both would certainly be "to the same overt act," although to different aspects. And each would be to the overt act of shooting, although neither saw the movement of a bullet from the gun to the victim. It would still be a remote possibility that the gun contained only a blank cartridge and the victim fell of heart failure. But it is not required that testimony be so minute as to exclude every fantastic hypothesis that can be suggested. We think two witnesses testified to these overt acts and petitioner cannot seriously contend that two did not testify to each of the overt acts comprising the group of charges on obtaining a job. Since this was the constitutional measure of evidence as to each overt act submitted to the jury, we do not reach the question whether 631 Opinion of the Court. the conviction could stand on some sufficiently proven acts if others failed in proof.1 It is urged that the conviction cannot be sustained because there is no sufficient proof of adherence to the enemy, the acts of aid and comfort being natural acts of aid for defendant's own son. Certainly that relationship is a fact for the jury to weigh along with others, and they were correctly instructed that if they found that defendant's intention was not to injure the United States but merely to aid his son "as an individual, as distinguished from assisting him in his purposes, if such existed, of aiding the German Reich, or of injuring the United States, the defendant must be found not guilty." The defendant can complain of no error in such a submission. It was for the jury to weigh the evidence that the acts proceeded from parental solicitude against the evidence of adherence to the German cause. It is argued that Haupt merely had 1 When, speaking of a general verdict of guilty in Cramer v. United States, 325 U. S. 1, 36, n. 45, we said "Since it is not possible to identify the grounds on which Cramer was convicted, the verdict must be set aside if any of the separable acts submitted was insufficient," of course we did not hold that one overt act properly proved and submitted would not sustain a conviction if the proof of other overt acts was insufficient. One such act may prove treason, and on review the conviction would be sustained, provided the record makes clear that the jury convicted on that overt act. But where several acts are pleaded in a single count and submitted to the jury, under instructions which allow a verdict of guilty on any one or more of such acts, a reviewing court has no way of knowing that any wrongly submitted act was not the one convicted upon. If acts were pleaded in separate counts, or a special verdict were required as to each overt act of a single count, the conviction could be sustained on a single well-proved act. As the acts were here pleaded in a single count, and the jury were instructed that they could convict on any one, we would have to reverse if any act were insufficient or insufficiently proved. Cf. Stromberg v. California, 283 U. S. 359, 368; Williams v. North Carolina, 317 U.S. 287, 292, and Cramer v. United States, supra. Opinion of the Court. 330 U.S. the misfortune to sire a traitor and all he did was to act as an indulgent father toward a disloyal son. In view however of the evidence of defendant's own statements that after the war he intended to return to Germany, that the United States was going to be defeated, that he would never permit his boy to join the American Army, that he would kill his son before he would send him to fight Germany, and others to the same effect, the jury apparently concluded that the son had the misfortune of being a chip off the old block-a tree inclined as the twig had been bent-metaphors which express the common sense observation that parents are as likely to influence the character of their children as are children to shape that of their parents. Such arguments are for the jury to decide. It is also urged that errors were made in admission of evidence. Some of this concerned conversations and occurrences long prior to the indictment which were admitted to prove intent. They consisted of statements showing sympathy with Germany and with Hitler and hostility to the United States. Such testimony is to be scrutinized with care to be certain the statements are not expressions of mere lawful and permissible difference of opinion with our own government or quite proper appreciation of the land of birth. But these statements were explicit and clearly were admissible on the question of intent and adherence to the enemy. Their weight was for the jury. Evidence of F. B. I. agents and of defendant's fellow prisoners as to conversations is also said to be inadmissible. The Constitution requires that "No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court." It is claimed that the statements of defendant were confessions, and as they were not made in open court were inadmissible as evidence. If there were not |