United States v. Hughes Tool Co., Cr. No. 10141.
| Decision Date | 02 July 1948 |
| Docket Number | Cr. No. 10141. |
| Citation | 78 F. Supp. 409 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. HUGHES TOOL CO. et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Hawaii |
E. H. Beebe, of Honolulu, Hawaii (Smith, Wild, Beebe & Cades, of Honolulu, Hawaii, of counsel), for defendants Hughes Tool Co., a Delaware corporation, doing business as Hughes Aircraft Co., Charles A. Loring, Glenn Edward Odekirk, Joseph Petrali.
Ray J. O'Brien, U. S. Atty., and Edward A. Towse, William M. Blatt, and Kenneth E. Young, Asst. U. S. Attys., all of Honolulu, Hawaii, for plaintiff.
To the five count indictment returned by the Grand Jury for this District, the defendants Hughes Tool Company, a Delaware Corporation, doing business as Hughes Aircraft Company in Los Angeles, California; Charles A. Loring, a Los Angeles attorney; Glenn Edward Odekirk, Hughes Aircraft Company's flight and service director; and Joseph V. Petrali, Hughes Aircraft Company's flight and service assistant director, move, pursuant to Rule 21(b) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, 18 U.S.C.A. following § 687, for a transfer of the proceeding to the United States District Court for the Southern District of California. With the exception of defendant Edward J. O'Connell, Jr., who at the times stated was manager of the Hawaiian office of the War Assets Administration and who is not as yet before this Court, the other defendants (Llewellyn and Woolley) do not resist but in effect join in the motion. The Government, however, does oppose it, especially as to Counts III, IV and V.
Counts I and II of the indictment allege a conspiracy to violate a law of the United States, 18 U.S.C.A. §§ 88 and 80. Of the many overt acts alleged in both of these counts, several of them are described as having occurred in Southern California and in or near Los Angeles where the defendant corporation does its aircraft business. Upon the motion, supplemented by affidavits, representations are made by the four moving Los Angeles defendants that to compel them to stand trial for an unpredictable period some 2,400 miles away from their business and homes would work an unnecessary hardship upon them individually and would seriously impede important experimental work being conducted by the defendant corporation by which two of the individual defendants are employed. The defendant Loring, an attorney, makes substantially the same representations, specifying that he has an important six to eight week trial scheduled in the State courts of California during August and September and that his family is expected to increase in number in August, hence for professional and family reasons his trial should be in Southern California. It is also represented by all individual defendants that trial in Hawaii would either make unavailable important character witnesses or seriously and unnecessarily inconvenience such witnesses. The added cost of local counsel and of producing character witnesses it is said would place an unnecessarily heavy financial burden upon them.
The weight of convenience is stated to thus favor the defendants and the interests of justice to dictate that this proceeding should be transferred.
If Counts I and II were the only counts of the indictment, I would not have the slightest hesitation in exercising my discretion in favor of the motion, for in addition to the good reasons assigned certain alleged overt acts said to have occurred in Southern California clearly would also give the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, Central Division, jurisdiction of the offenses alleged in these two counts. Hyde v. United States, 1912, 225 U.S. 347, 32 S.Ct. 793, 56 L.Ed. 1114, Ann.Cas.1914A, 614; Pullin v. United States, 5 Cir., 1939, 104 F.2d 57, certiorari denied, 308 U.S. 552, 60 S.Ct. 97, 84 L.Ed. 464; and as to Rule 21 (b) see United States v. National City Lines Inc., S.D.Cal., 1947, 7 F.R.D. 393, for an excellent exposition of its scope and purpose. See also United States v. Johnson, 1944, 323 U.S. 273 at 279, 65 S.Ct. 249, 89 L.Ed. 236, as to available character evidence in a borderline case possibly spelling the difference between liberty and imprisonment.
But Counts III, IV and V of the indictment present in relation to the motion a jurisdictional problem of greater difficulty. The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure make no provision for the segregation and transfer for trial purposes of counts of an indictment. Consequently unless the United States District Court in Los Angeles has jurisdiction of all of these counts, the trial must proceed here where the jurisdiction of all counts is unquestioned.
And that is precisely the movents' argument: that the United States District Court in Los Angeles also has...
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United States v. Apex Distributing Company
...own allegations and cannot be aided by recitals in or inferences to be drawn from other counts in the indictment. United States v. Hughes Tool Co., D.C.Hawaii, 78 F.Supp. 409. During the oral arguments on this motion and in its brief the government conceded that it must show a transportatio......
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United States v. Choate
...which it is based (cited in footnote 2, supra); nor do we think that that position is sound in principle. United States v. Hughes Tool Co., D.C. D.Hawaii, 1948, 78 F.Supp. 409, involved a five-count indictment, the proceedings under two counts of which the district court would have transfer......
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Holdsworth v. United States
...appears to us. The District Judge in Maine was confronted by the decision of the District Court of Hawaii in United States v. Hughes Tool Co., D.C. Hawaii 1948, 78 F. Supp. 409. The court in that case held that indictments must be tried in the district having jurisdiction of all of its coun......
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United States v. Erie Basin Metal Products Co., Crim. No. 21312.
...by the authorities. The very recent case of United States v. Hughes Tool Co., decided by the District Court for the District of Hawaii, 78 F.Supp. 409, upon which the Government places much reliance, is clearly different on the We come, then, to the second and final question, namely, are we......