Dawson v. United States
| Decision Date | 24 June 1961 |
| Docket Number | No. 17402.,17402. |
| Parties | Everette Thompson DAWSON, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
William O. Hogan, San Diego, Cal., for appellant.
Francis C. Whelan, U. S. Atty., Thomas R. Sheridan, Ernest A. Long, Asst. U. S. Attys., Los Angeles, Cal., for appellee.
Before BARNES, MERRILL and KOELSCH, Circuit Judges.
Petitioner sought and obtained from this court an order to show cause why a writ of habeas corpus should not be issue in his favor. He had been convicted in the District Court in and for the Southern District of California, Southern Division, of the crime of kidnapping. 18 U.S.C. § 1201. His sentence was delayed so that he could make this application.
Section 1201 reads, in material part, as follows:
"Whoever knowingly transports in * * * foreign commerce, any person who has been unlawfully seized, confined, inveigled, decoyed, kidnapped, abducted, or carried away and held for ransom or reward or otherwise * * * shall be punished * * *." etc. (Emphasis added.)
No issue is here made of sufficiency of the evidence to support petitioner's conviction, or any other error of law allegedly occurring in the trial, for such matters can be reached by appeal.
Petitioner here alleges the invalidity of his confinement because the indictment presented against him by the Grand Jury on the kidnapping charge was fatally defective in that it does not allege a kidnapping or transportation "for a purpose." (Emphasis by petitioner.)
Petitioner was indicted as follows:
Petitioner relies primarily on four cases: United States v. Varner, 7 Cir., 1960, 283 F.2d 900, 903; Chatwin v. United States, 1946, 326 U.S. 455, 66 S.Ct. 233, 90 L.Ed. 198; Williams v. United States, 9 Cir., 1959, 265 F.2d 214; and People v. Oliver, 55 Cal.2d ___, 12 Cal.Rptr. 865, 361 P. 2d 593 (decided May 8, 1961).
In Varner, supra, the indictment read "and held for reward or other reasons," with no detail as to what such reasons were.
We point out that the Varner case, supra, held the allegation "or other reasons" carried no meaning in the absence of detail, and was surplusage, and that the same views were held with respect to the statutory language "held for * * * reward or otherwise." (Emphasis added.) Nevertheless, the form of the indictment was held sufficient to state an offense — it was because of lack of proof of reward that the case was reversed.
We do not agree with some of the reasoning in Varner. We believe the phrase "or otherwise" was added by the Congress to the existing statute in 1937 for a purpose and with a meaning. We prefer the interpretation of other circuits.
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