United States v. Hirsch
| Decision Date | 01 October 1879 |
| Citation | 100 U.S. 33,25 L.Ed. 539 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. HIRSCH |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
CERTIFICATE of division in opinion between the judges of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York.
An indictment, consisting of four counts, was found, Feb. 3, 1877, against Hiram Hirsch and others, who pleaded that the offences therein charged had been committed more than three years before the finding of the indictment.
The first count was drawn under sect. 5440, Rev. State., and charges the defendant with a conspiracy, entered into on the first day of September, 1873, to defraud the United States out of the duties on certain described merchandise to be thereafterwards imported into the United States.
The second count charges a conspiracy, entered into on the thirteenth day of September, 1873, to defraud the United States out of duties on certain merchandise theretofore imported into the United States. The remaining counts were drawn under sect. 5445, and charge that the defendants knowingly effected an entry of the goods at the custom-house, by a fraudulent invoice of them, and by a false classification as to their quality and value.
The United States demurred to the plea, and the judges of the Circuit Court were divided in opinion upon the question 'whether the trial is barred by sect. 1044, the indictment having been found more than three years after the commission of the alleged offence, or whether it is within the provisions of sect. 1046, as having been found within five years next after the commission of the alleged offence.'
It is enacted by sect. 1044 that 'no person shall be prosecuted for any offence, not capital, except as provided in sect 1046, unless the indictment is found within three years next after such offence shall have been committed;' and by sect. 1046, that 'no person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for any crime arising under the revenue laws or the slave-trade laws of the United States, unless the indictment is found or the information is instituted within five years next after the committing of such crime.'
The Solicitor-General for the United States.
Mr. George Hoadly, for the defendants, cited United States v. Mayo, 1 Gall. 396; United States v. Norton, 91 U. S. 566.
MR. JUSTICE MILLER, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.
The question before us is whether the indictment describes crimes arising under the revenue laws of the United States.
There can be little doubt that the crimes set out in the third and fourth counts, conforming as they do to the description of the offence found in sect. 5445, of a false classification of goods as to value and quality, and effecting an entry of goods at less than the true weight or measure, arise under the revenue laws. The section, intended solely for the protection of the revenue arising from customs, was originally the third section of the act of March 3, 1863, entitled 'An Act to prevent frauds upon the revenue, to provide for the more certain and speedy collection of claims against the United States, and for other purposes.' 12 Stat. 737. It is, beyond question, a revenue law, and the offence defined by it is therefore a crime arising under the revenue laws of the United States.
With regard to the first two counts the answer is not so clear.
The gravamen of the offence here is the conspiracy. For this there must be more than one person engaged. Although by the statute something more than the common-law definition of a conspiracy is necessary to complete the offence, to wit, some act done...
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... ... the conspiracy alone, is explicitly held in United States ... v. Britton, 108 U.S. 204, 2 Sup.Ct. 531, 27 L.Ed. 698 ... See, also, Pettibone v. United States, 148 U.S. 202, ... 13 Sup.Ct. 542, 37 L.Ed. 419. In United States v ... Hirsch, 100 U.S. 33, 25 L.Ed. 539, ... [154 F. 421] ... it was ... held that under section 5440 the offense charged was so ... distinctively conspiracy alone that the three years applied, ... although the overt acts charged were of themselves crimes ... against the revenue to which ... ...
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Jelke v. United States
... ... Sup.Ct. 163, 52 L.Ed. 278; Dealy v. United States, ... 152 U.S. 539, 14 Sup.Ct. 680, 38 L.Ed. 545; United States ... v. Keitel, 211 U.S. 370, 29 Sup.Ct. 123, 53 L.Ed. 230; ... United States v. Rabinowich, 238 U.S. 78, 35 Sup.Ct ... 682, 59 L.Ed. 1211; United States v. Hirsch, 100 ... U.S. 33, 25 L.Ed. 539; Curley v. United States, 130 ... F. 1, 64 C.C.A. 369; United States v. Gooding, 12 ... Wheat. 460, 6 L.Ed. 693; Rosen v. United States, 161 ... U.S. 29, 16 Sup.Ct. 434, 480, 40 L.Ed. 606; Pettibone v ... United States, 148 U.S. 198, 13 Sup.Ct. 542, 37 ... ...
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...53 S.Ct. 35, 77 L.Ed. 206, 84 A.L.R. 370, supra. Those having no knowledge of the conspiracy are not conspirators, United States v. Hirsch, 100 U.S. 33, 34, 25 L.Ed. 539, 540; Weniger v. United States, (CCA 9th) 47 F.2d 692, 693; And one who without more furnishes supplies to an illicit dis......
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