United States v. Illig
Citation | 288 F. 939 |
Decision Date | 01 January 1920 |
Docket Number | 425. |
Parties | UNITED STATES v. ILLIG. |
Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania |
Walter Lyon, U.S. Atty., of Pittsburgh, Pa.
S. Y Rossiter, of Erie, Pa., for defendant.
We have before us for consideration a motion to quash an information made by the United States attorney, charging the defendant with violation of the Volstead Act (41 Stat. 305), in nine separate counts. The information was drawn at a time in the early enforcement of the Volstead Act, when, in an earnest effort to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment, other constitutional amendments and legal principles of basic importance seemed to have been overlooked. In order to intelligently pass upon the motion to quash, it is necessary to consider certain fundamental propositions, which, when applied to the information, must determine its validity. The first reason assigned in support of the motion to quash is that the procedure by information is unlawful and a deprivation of the defendant's constitutional rights.
Under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States no person can be held to answer for a capital or other infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of the grand jury. This provision is very specific, the only uncertainty arising as to the meaning of the words 'infamous crime.' These words the Supreme Court has interpreted. In United States v. Wilson, 114 U.S 417, at page 425, 5 Sup.Ct. 935, at page 939 (29 L.Ed. 89) the court says:
The court further held that a crime may be infamous which has not been so declared by Congress, and that imprisonment for a term of years at hard labor is an infamous punishment within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. In that case, the court went no further than the necessities of the decision required; but in Mackin v. United States, 117 U.S. 348, 6 Sup.Ct. 777, 29 L.Ed. 909, it was distinctly held that a crime punishable by imprisonment in the state prison or penitentiary is an infamous crime, and the defendant cannot be held to answer in the courts of the United States for such crime otherwise than on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury. In Ex parte Wilson, supra, the court said:
The acts of Congress not only have not prohibited the use of informations, but have authorized their use in certain cases under section 1022 of the Revised Statutes (Comp. St. Sec. 1686).
In Re Bonner, 151 U.S. 242, 257, 14 Sup.Ct. 323, 326 (38 L.Ed. 149), the Supreme Court held:
Following this came the Criminal Code of 1909, section 335 (Comp. St. Sec. 10509) of which provides that all offenses punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year shall be deemed felonies, and all other offenses, misdemeanors. Therefore, as the law stands, all offenses which may be punished by imprisonment exceeding one year must be prosecuted by indictment or presentment by a grand jury. Misdemeanors may be prosecuted by presentment, indictment, or information.
As none of the counts in this information charge an offense for which an imprisonment exceeding one year could be imposed, the prosecution by information is not illegal.
The defendant alleges in the second place, in substance, that the information is defective by reason of generality, failing to specify particularly the acts constituting the alleged violations, and is merely a statement of legal conclusions. This requires a more careful consideration.
Under the Sixth Amendment to the Constitution, it is a fundamental requisite in a criminal prosecution that the accused shall 'be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation. ' This not only in order that he may be enabled to properly prepare his defense, but also that the crime may be so definitely defined that the accused may thereafter be protected from prosecution on the same charge by plea of former acquittal or conviction. In Evans v. United States, 153 U.S. 587, 14 Sup.Ct. 936, 38 L.Ed. 830, in considering the sufficiency of an indictment, the court said:
United States v. Behrman, 258 U.S. 280, 42 Sup.Ct. 303, 66 L.Ed. 619.
When the prosecution is based solely on information, the above reasoning becomes particularly cogent and controlling, on account of the unusual character of the proceeding, practically unknown to the criminal procedure of Pennsylvania and many other states, by which the defendant is deprived of a preliminary hearing before a committing magistrate, which naturally disclose to him the nature of the charge and the evidence to support it; and deprived also of the protection accorded to him against an unfounded prosecution by the timely intervention of a grand jury. It becomes apparent, therefore, from every legal viewpoint, that in a prosecution by information, which stands in lieu of the indictment of the grand jury, to which defendant must plead, upon which he must go to trial without preliminary hearing, and to which alone he must look to 'be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation,' that such information should without doubt be not less specific than the indictment in setting forth fully, directly, and expressly, without any uncertainty, all the elements necessary to constitute the offense, every ingredient of which it is composed.
It is true that section 32 of title 2 of the Volstead Act provides that--
'It shall not be necessary in any affidavit, information or indictment to give the name of the purchaser or to include any defensive negative averments, but it shall be sufficient to state that the act complained of was then and there prohibited and unlawful, but this...
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