Bandy v. Attorney General

• Decision Date: 09 June 1966
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 4207.
• Citation: 254 F. Supp. 590
• Parties: Roger S. BANDY, Petitioner, v. The ATTORNEY GENERAL of the United States, Respondent.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of South Dakota

254 F. Supp. 590

Roger S. BANDY, Petitioner, v. The ATTORNEY GENERAL of the United States, Respondent.

Civ. No. 4207.

United States District Court D. North Dakota, Southeastern Division.

June 9, 1966.

Roger S. Bandy, pro se.

John O. Garaas, U. S. Atty., Fargo, N. D., for respondent.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDERS

RONALD N. DAVIES, District Judge.

Roger S. Bandy has filed with this Court two petitions for writs of habeas corpus in connection with his arrest, trial and conviction under a six count indictment charging him with filing false and fictitious income tax returns, claiming overpayment of income taxes under fictitious names, The United States v. Roger S. Bandy, Criminal No. 8834, DC, ND (1959).

This is but another chapter in the sorry saga of a man who has unsuccessfully sought to cheat the Government, whose conviction of his crimes was upheld by the Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit and whose petition for a writ of certiorari to the United States Supreme Court was denied, Bandy v. United States, 296 F.2d 882 (8th Circuit, 1961); certiorari denied, 82 S.Ct. 849, 369 U.S. 831, 7 L.Ed. 796 (1962).

After his conviction by a jury, this Court declined to release Bandy on his personal recognizance because of his prior record; and although Bandy had been convicted in North Dakota in September, 1959, and his conviction affirmed by the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals on November 15th, 1961; although Bandy had been convicted in California in 1956 of filing false claims for income tax refunds, similar to the charges upon which he was found guilty in this Court in Fargo in 1959; although he had been paroled on April 28, 1958, and at the time of his arrest in New York City on June 2nd, 1959, was wanted by Federal authorities as a parole violator; and although Bandy on July 26, 1961, after his conviction in Fargo was convicted in U. S. Court in Idaho under a 12 count indictment and sentenced to a total of 10 years' confinement, although all these things took place, Bandy was freed on his own signature by a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States some five months after his Idaho conviction and more than two years after his North Dakota conviction.

In one of the classic examples of misplaced confidence in the annals of American Jurisprudence, on December 14, 1961, Bandy was, by order of Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, admitted to bail on his own recognizance pending Bandy's timely filing for a writ of certiorari in the Supreme Court.

Mr. Justice Douglas saw fit to release Bandy without any security whatever under Rule 46, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, which provides, among other things, that pending appeal or certiorari to the Supreme Court, bail may be allowed by the Court of Appeals or by any Judge thereof or by the Supreme Court or by a Justice thereof.

Significantly, Mr. Justice Whittaker of the United States Supreme Court had previously declined to release Bandy on his personal recognizance. Moreover, on May 16, 1961, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, to which Bandy had appealed, denied Bandy's release on his personal recognizance.

And so, on December 20th, 1961, Bandy was freed from the Cass County jail in Fargo. On March 26th, 1962, the United States Supreme Court denied Bandy's request for a writ of certiorari, and four days later the Supreme Court mandate was filed in U. S. District Court at Fargo. But Roger S. Bandy had vanished without a trace.

This Court issued its bench warrant for Bandy's arrest on May 1st, 1962. He was ultimately apprehended in New York City by Federal authorities on Thursday, December 9, 1965, more than three and one-half years after he dropped from sight.

With this brief summary of Bandy's...