Steigleder v. United States

• Citation: 25 F.2d 959
• Decision Date: 16 April 1928
• Docket Number: No. 7907.,7907.
• Parties: STEIGLEDER v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (8th Circuit)

25 F.2d 959 (1928)

STEIGLEDER v. UNITED STATES.

No. 7907.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

April 16, 1928.

T. L. Blackmore, of Sapulpa, Okl., for plaintiff in error.

John M. Goldesberry, U. S. Atty., and W. B. Blair, Asst. U. S. Atty., both of Tulsa, Okl.

Before KENYON, Circuit Judge, and SCOTT and SYMES, District Judges.

SYMES, District Judge.

The indictment in this case contains 17 counts. The first count charges Steigleder, the plaintiff in error, defendant below, and others, with conspiring (18 USCA § 88; Criminal Code, § 37) to violate various provisions (section 592 of title 12, USCA; R. S. § 5209) of the national banking laws of the United States. Sixteen overt acts are set forth in this count. Sixteen additional counts, 2 to 17, inclusive, charge each overt act as a separate, substantive violation of the same statute.

At the close of the trial the court dismissed counts 4, 5, 6, 8, 10, 11, 12, 15, and 16, and submitted counts 1, 2, 3, 7, 9, 13, 14, and 17 to the jury, which, after due deliberation, convicted Steigleder on all the counts submitted. Thereupon the court sentenced him on count 1 to a year and a day in the federal penitentiary, and a fine of $2,500, and further sentenced him to five years in the penitentiary and a fine of $100 on each of counts 2, 3, 7, 9, 13, 14, and 17; the sentences on the latter counts to run consecutively with count 1.

There are five assignments of error in the record, presenting, however, but one question, to wit, double punishment. The acts charged as overt acts in aid of the conspiracy count are later charged separately in counts 2 to 17. Plaintiff in error asserts that the same criminal act, or offense, cannot be pleaded as an overt act in a conspiracy count, and also as a separate substantive offense. Or to put it another way: That the facts pleaded separately in counts 2 to 17, respectively, are the same that are pleaded collectively as overt acts in the conspiracy count and that the same evidence required to convict under any one of counts 2 to 17 will sustain a conviction under the conspiracy count.

This proposition, variously stated, has been made many times before in the federal courts, and always rejected, and does not justify extended discussion. There are no common-law crimes cognizable in the federal courts and the conspiracy section referred to is purely a creature of statute. It in no sense is a combination of offenses, but a distinct and separate crime. The gravamen of the offense is the formation of a conspiracy, or agreement, to commit an offense against the United States, coupled with the doing of any act to effect the object thereof. This requires proof of the common understanding, and of an overt act done in furtherance thereof. But the act which must be done by one or more of the conspirators to effect the object of the conspiracy does not have to be a successful, completed, substantive act or offense....