United States v. Hastings

Decision Date09 December 1935
Docket NumberNo. 22,22
Citation296 U.S. 188,80 L.Ed. 148,56 S.Ct. 218
PartiesUNITED STATES v. HASTINGS
CourtU.S. Supreme Court

[Syllabus from pages 188-190 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Homer S. Cummings, Atty. Gen., and Joseph B. Keenan, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the United States.

Mr. James M. Beck, of Washington, D.C., for appellee.

Mr. Chief Justice HUGHES delivered the opinion of the Court.

Defendant was indicted in the District Court of the United States for violation of the United States Warehouse Act, 7 U.S.C. § 270 (7 USCA § 270). The indictment contained three counts, each charging the 'removal and stealing' of a numbered bale of cotton from a licensed warehouse contrary to the statute and regulations.1 A demurrer was sustained and the government brings this appeal under the Criminal Appeals Act. 18 U.S.C. § 682 (18 USCA § 682).

The penal provision of the statute, so far as pertinent here, is as follows:

'Every person who shall * * * remove from a licensed warehouse contrary to this chapter or the regulations promulgated thereunder, any agricultural products stored or to be stored in such warehouse, and for which licensed receipts have been or are to be issued, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall be fined not more than $10,000, or double the value of the products involved if such double value exceeds $10,000, or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both, in the discretion of the court.'

The District Judge certified his grounds for sustaining the demurrer as follows:

'(1) That said indictment fails to charge any offense against the laws of the United States.

'(2) That the indictment fails to charge that the cotton alleged to have been removed and stolen was the property of any person.

'(3) That the indictment fails to allege the name of the owner of said cotton, and does not charge any intent to defraud the owner thereof.

'(4) That the indictment does not allege the value of the cotton alleged to have been removed and stolen, or that the cotton was of any value.

'(5) That section 270, title 7, of the United States Code, being the section under which the indictment is drawn, is unconstitutional, in that, Congress is without authority under the Constitution to make it an offense against the laws of the United States to remove agricultural products from a Federal licensed warehouse as alleged in the indictment.'

1. The juridiction of this Court. If the first four grounds of the decision, as stated in the certificate of the District Judge, are to be taken as wholly independent of the questions of the construction and validity of the United States Warehouse Act, those grouns may not be challenged on this appeal. The statute conferring jurisdiction on appeal by the government in criminal prosecutions confines that jurisdiction to cases where the decision of the District Court, on demurrer, motion to quash, or in arrest of judgment, 'is based upon the invalidity, or construction of the statute upon which the indictment is founded,' or where the District Court has sustained 'a special plea in bar, when the defendant has not been put in jeopardy.' 18 U.S.C. § 682 (18 USCA § 682). The proposal to confer a broader jurisdiction was considered by the Congress and rejected.2 Thus the construction of the indictment and its sufficiency merely as a pleading, as distinguished from the construction of the statute, are questions for the District Court. We must accept the construction of the indictment as that court gives it. And where that court has rested its decision upon the invalidity or construction of the statute which underlies the indictment, this Court will not go beyond those grounds and consider other objections to the indictment. United States v. Keitel, 211 U.S. 370, 397, 398, 29 S.Ct. 123, 53 L.Ed. 230; United States v. Miller, 223 U.S. 599, 602, 32 S.Ct. 323, 56 L.Ed. 568; United States v. Carter, 231 U.S. 492, 493, 34 S.Ct. 173, 58 L.Ed. 330; United States v. Moist, 231 U.S. 701, 702, 34 S.Ct. 255, 58 L.Ed. 444; United States v. Colgate & Co., 250 U.S. 300, 301, 302, 39 S.Ct. 465, 63 L.Ed. 992, 7 A.L.R. 443; United States v. A. Schrader's Son, 252 U.S. 85, 98, 40 S.Ct. 251, 64 L.Ed. 471; United States v. Yuginovich, 256 U.S. 450, 461, 41 S.Ct. 551, 65 L.Ed. 1043.

A distinct question is presented where the District Court has not placed its decision solely upon the invalidity or construction of the statute, but has also sustained the demurrer or granted the motion to quash the indictment upon wholly independent grounds of insufficiency. In such a case the judgment of the District Court would remain in effect, and the defendant would go free of the indictment, whatever views we might express upon appeal as to the construction or validity of the statute. We could not reverse the judgment upon questions not before us. An indictment not merely attacked, but found to be invalid on grounds not open here, would be made the vehicle of an effort to obtain from this Court an expression of an abstract opinion, which might or might not fit a subsequent prosecution of the same defendant or others, but would not determine the instant case. Review of a judgment which we cannot disturb, because it rests adequately upon a basis not subject to our examination, would be an anomaly.

An analogous situation is found in cases where the jurisdiction of this Court has been invoked on writs of error or appeals from judgments of state courts, and it appears that, notwithstanding the existence of a federal question, and its consideration and determination by the state court, the judgment rests upon a non-federal ground adequate to support it and hence would not be affected by a decision by this Court of the federal question. In such cases, we refuse review. While the earlier practice was to affirm the judgment without considering the federal question, the later practice has been to dismiss the writ of error or appeal. Murdock v. Memphis, 20 Wall. 590, 634, 635, 22 L.Ed. 429; Jenkins v. Lowenthal, 110 U.S. 222, 3 S.Ct. 638, 28 L.Ed. 129; Hale v. Akers, 132 U.S. 554, 565, 10 S.Ct. 171, 33 L.Ed. 442; Hammond v. Johnston, 142 U.S. 73, 78, 12 S.Ct. 141, 35 L.Ed. 941; Eustis v. Bolles, 150 U.S. 361, 370, 14 S.Ct. 131, 37 L.Ed. 1111; Enterprise Irrigation District v. Farmers' Canal Co., 243 U.S. 157, 164, 166, 37 S.Ct. 318, 61 L.Ed. 644; Petrie v. Nampa Irrigation District, 248 U.S. 154, 157, 39 S.Ct. 25, 63 L.Ed. 178; Ex parte Steckler, 292 U.S. 610, 54 S.Ct. 781, 78 L.Ed. 1470; Capital Endowment Company v. Ohio (Nov. 11, 1935), 296 U.S. 546, 56 S.Ct. 174, 80 L.Ed. 387.

It was in the light of the considerations governing the exercise of the judicial power that the Criminal Appeals Act was enacted and appeals by the government were subjected to the prescribed limitations. United States v. Evans, 213 U.S. 297, 300, 29 S.Ct. 507, 53 L.Ed. 803. We think that the provision which limits the government's appeal to those cases where the decision or judgment of the District Court is 'based' upon the invalidity or construction of the statute should be taken to refer to cases where that determination, and not a wholly independent grounds, is the foundation of the judgment. If the judgment is independently based, and in that respect is not open to correction or reversal, we are of the opinion that this Court should not entertain the government's appeal. To the extent that the opinion in the case of United States v. Stevenson, 215 U.S. 190, 195, 30 S.Ct. 35, 54 L.Ed. 153, states a contrary view, it is disapproved.

Are the first four grounds stated by the District Judge independent of the construction of the statute? The first ground may fairly be regarded as not a distinct ground, or a finding of the insufficiency of the indictment as a mere matter of pleading, but as intended to be an introduction to the specifications which follow and to be read in their light. Treating the first ground in this sense, and as merely preliminary, we turn to the specifications in the second, third, and fourth grounds, which clearly involve the construction of the act. That is, they go upon the view that the ingredients of the statutory offense are similar to those of common-law larceny and that to establish the offense it must be alleged and proved that the cotton in question was the property of a person named, was removed with intent to defraud the owner, and had value. It is the contention of the government that this is an unwarranted construction and that the words of the statute, which do not contain such requirements, are fully descriptive of the statutory offense.

In his fifth ground, the District Judge expressly deals with the constitutionality of the provision, holding that Congress is without authority 'to make it an offense against the laws of the United States to remove agricultural products from a federal licensed warehouse as alleged in the indictment.' The concluding words challenge attention to the absence from the indictment of an allegation that the cotton was stored for interstate or foreign commerce. The statement of the District Judge may be taken to be a construction of the indictment as charging simply the removal of the cotton from a federal licensed warehouse which had issued a receipt, without alleging that the cotton was stored for interstate or foreign commerce and that the receipt was issued accordingly. We are not at liberty to construe the indictment otherwise. While in this view, the present appeal does not bring up the questions broadly discussed at the bar as to products stored for interstate or foreign commerce—questions which must await a different and appropriate record—the appeal does present a narrower but still important question as to the scope of the penal provision. That is, whether Congress sought to exert and, if so, could validly exert, such a measure of control over warehouses operating under federal licenses, as to penalize the removal of products deposited in such...

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