Anderson v. United States

• Decision Date: 04 August 1954
• Docket Number: No. 12005.,12005.
• Citation: 215 F.2d 84
• Parties: ANDERSON et al. v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit

215 F.2d 84 (1954)

ANDERSON et al. v. UNITED STATES.

No. 12005.

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit.

August 4, 1954.

Robert N. Gorman, Cincinnati, Ohio, Charles E. Lester, Jr., Newport, Ky., for appellants.

J. Leonard Walker, U. S. Atty., Rhodes Bratcher, Asst. U. S. Atty., Louisville, Ky., for appellee.

Before MARTIN, McALLISTER and STEWART, Circuit Judges.

MARTIN, Circuit Judge.

The appellants, Roy E. Anderson and John R. Lewis, Jr., were convicted by the verdict of a jury on a one-count indictment charging violation of section 1503, Title 18, United States Code Annotated, and each was sentenced by the United States District Judge to imprisonment for two years. Prior to December 1, 1952, Anderson had been a federal narcotic agent, whose duty was to enforce the anti-narcotic laws of the United States. At the time of the commission of the offense charged in the indictment, February 18, 1953, Anderson and Lewis were engaged, as partners, in the practice of law at Cincinnati, Ohio.

The succinctly drawn indictment charged: "That on or about the 18th of February, 1953, at Louisville, in the Western District of Kentucky, Roy E. Anderson and John R. Lewis, Jr., did corruptly endeavor to impede the due administration of justice; that is to say, on or about the date aforementioned, the said Roy E. Anderson and John R. Lewis, Jr., at Louisville, Kentucky, did agree and promise to W. Stewart Carter that they would alter the testimony of Roy E. Anderson and the testimony of Clifford W. Powers, the said Roy E. Anderson and Clifford W. Powers then being material witnesses in a case then pending in the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky against the said W. Stewart Carter, same being indictment No. 23,589, and did by this means corruptly endeavor to impede the due administration of justice."

After verdict, appellants filed a motion in arrest of judgment attacking the sufficiency of the indictment. They do not contend on this appeal that there was insufficient evidence to support their conviction and do not even print the record of the testimony adduced. They do print the charge of the district judge, however, for the stated reason that the jury was asked to pass on questions that did not involve the laws of the United States. Appellants assert that the prosecution averred that they had obtained $500 from Dr. W. Stewart Carter of Louisville, in consideration of their agreement to have the testimony changed at the forthcoming trial of the doctor for alleged violation of the federal anti-narcotic laws. They admitted recorded conversations with the doctor to that end, but state that they were seeking to entrap him so that his conviction would be assured. Appellants concede, however, that "since the facts were not denied, the inferences to be drawn from the facts were clearly for the jury."

As the basis of their appeal, appellants insist that the indictment returned against them does not state a criminal offense. They subdivide their argument into three closely interrelated points: (1) that they were deprived of their constitutional rights in that, by the construction placed by the trial court on Code Section 1503 of Title 18, the charge against them was too vague and indefinite; (2) that, if a proper construction be placed upon the statute, no offense was charged, in that the indictment does not charge contact with a witness; and (3) that, though knowledge is a necessary averment, the indictment fails to charge knowledge on the part of appellants of the pending prosecution of Dr. Carter.

None of these points is well grounded, either in law or in logic. A careful reading of the language of the comprehensive pertinent statute and the clear and simple language of the indictment charging the violation of the statute impels this conclusion. The statute, section 1503, Title 18, U.S.C.A., provides: "Whoever corruptly, or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication, endeavors to influence, intimidate, or impede any witness, in any court of the United States or before any United States commissioner or other committing magistrate, or any grand or petit juror, or officer in or of any court of the United States, or officer who may be serving at any examination or other proceeding before any United States commissioner or other committing magistrate, in the discharge of his duty, or injures any party or witness in his person or property on account of his attending or having attended such court or examination before such officer, commissioner, or other committing magistrate, or on account of his testifying or having testified to any matter pending therein, or injures any such grand or petit juror in his person or property on account of any verdict or indictment assented to by him, or on account of his being or having been such juror, or injures any such officer, commissioner, or other committing magistrate in his person or property on account of the performance of his official duties, or corruptly or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication, influences, obstructs, or impedes, or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice, shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both." June 25, 1948, C. 645, 62 Stat. 769. (Italics ours.)

The language of the indictment charging the offense is in strict conformity with the definition of the offense in the statute. Certainly, there is nothing vague or indefinite in the charge that appellants endeavored to impede the due administration of justice, in that they promised Dr. Carter that they would alter the testimony of Anderson himself and that of Powers, both being at the time material witnesses in a pending criminal case (specified by indictment number) against Dr. Carter in the jurisdiction of the United States District Court for the Western District of Kentucky; and that they did, by such means, "corruptly endeavor to impede the due administration of justice."

This court has held repeatedly that the required clarity of the charge laid in an indictment is only such as will fairly apprise the defendant of the crime intended to be alleged, so as to enable him to prepare his defense and to make the judgment, whether of acquittal or conviction, a complete defense to a second prosecution for the same offense. See, among our many decisions to such effect: Bettman v. United States, 6 Cir., 224 F. 819, 826; Pierce v. United States, 6 Cir., 86 F.2d 949, 951; Bogy v. United States, 6 Cir., 96 F.2d 734, 736; Hughes v. United States, 6 Cir., 114 F.2d 285, 288; Richardson v. United States, 6 Cir., 150 F.2d 58, 60; Dowling Bros. Distilling Co. v. United States, 6 Cir., 153 F.2d 353, 360. This criterion was approved in Ross v. United States, 6 Cir., 180 F.2d 160, 164, where the appellants contended, as appellants do here, that the indictment did not sufficiently state an offense against the laws of the United States.

In Hagner v. United States, 285 U.S. 427, 431, 52 S.Ct. 417, 419, 76 L.Ed. 861, Mr. Justice Sutherland asserted: "The rigor of old common-law rules of criminal pleading has yielded, in modern practice, to the general principle that formal defects, not prejudicial, will be disregarded. The true test of the sufficiency of an indictment is not whether it could have been made more definite and certain, but whether it contains the elements of the offense intended to be charged, `and sufficiently apprises the defendant of what he must be prepared to meet, and, in case any other proceedings are taken against him for a similar offense, whether the record shows with accuracy to what extent he may plead a former acquittal or conviction.' Cochran and Sayre v. United States, 157 U.S. 286, 290, 15 S.Ct. 628, 630, 39 L.Ed. 704; Rosen v. United States, 161 U.S. 29, 34, 16 S.Ct. 434, 480, 40 L.Ed. 606." By this standard, appellants have no just complaint of the insufficiency of the indictment, nor can they complain that the indictment fails to state a criminal offense. All essential elements of the offense condemned by the statute are embraced in the indictment.

We are unable to see any force in the argument of appellants that the opinion of the Supreme Court in United States v. L. Cohen Grocery Co., 255 U.S. 81, 41 S.Ct. 298, 300, 65 L.Ed. 516, buttresses their contention that the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States was violated by the interpretation placed by the trial judge upon the indictments and the statute, when he instructed the jury that the defendants would be guilty should it be found that by their actions they "corruptly endeavored to impede the due administration of justice."¹

Appellants knew that Dr. Carter was under indictment for violation of the anti-narcotic laws of the United States; and they were charged with and found guilty of going to the doctor and offering to alter the testimony of one of them, namely Roy E. Anderson, as well as the testimony to be given by another witness, Clifford Powers. Such testimony was to be given in the criminal case against Dr. Carter then pending in the United States District Court for Western Kentucky. The indictment concluded with the charge that, by these means, appellants corruptly endeavored to impede the due administration of justice.

It would seem easy to understand in the context what was meant by a corrupt endeavor to impede the due administration of justice. There can be no reasonable doubt that an effort to alter testimony of witnesses for a corrupt purpose would plainly be an endeavor to impede the due administration of justice. We think the implication so plain that the point need not be labored.

In the Cohen Grocery Company case, supra, heavily stressed by appellants, the Supreme Court was dealing with a section of the Food Control Act of 1917, as later amended, which denounced and penalized the making by any person of "any unjust or unreasonable rate or...