Biddle v. Lieberman

• Decision Date: 29 October 1925
• Docket Number: No. 6235.,6235.
• Citation: 8 F.2d 870
• Parties: BIDDLE, Warden, v. LIEBERMAN.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

8 F.2d 870 (1925)

BIDDLE, Warden, v. LIEBERMAN.

No. 6235.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

October 29, 1925.

Alton H. Skinner, Asst. U. S. Atty., of Topeka, Kan. (Al. F. Williams, U. S. Atty., of Topeka, Kan., on the brief), for appellant.

Before STONE and VAN VALKENBURGH, Circuit Judges, and PHILLIPS, District Judge.

VAN VALKENBURGH, Circuit Judge.

Appellee, with another, was indicted in the Eastern district of Michigan for having feloniously and without authority brought into the United States from a foreign country, to wit, the Dominion of Canada, "a certain large quantity of counterfeit engravings, prints and impressions, to wit, two thousand so-called strip stamps and inland excise stamps, said counterfeit engravings, prints, and impressions being then and there in the likeness and similitude of a certain genuine obligation and security of a certain foreign government, to wit, the Dominion of Canada, said counterfeit engravings, prints and impressions being in the likeness and similitude of certain inland excise stamps of a certain foreign government of the denomination of one cent." Then followed a detailed description of the counterfeit inland excise stamps thus introduced.

Upon arraignment, the appellee, Lieberman, entered a plea of guilty and was sentenced to imprisonment for a period of three years in the United States penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kan. He later sued out, in the District Court for the District of Kansas, a writ of habeas corpus upon which he was by the court discharged from custody. From this order and judgment the warden brings this appeal.

The decree below was entered without opinion and appellee files no brief in this court. The sole ground upon which the petition for habeas corpus bases its claim for the relief prayed is that "the indictment does not state or allege any offense against the laws of the United States, and does not state or allege any facts the doing of which would constitute an offense against said section 161 of the Criminal Code, or any other statute of the United States," by reason whereof it is urged that the trial court was without jurisdiction.

Section 161 of the Criminal Code (Comp. St. § 10331), in so far as it is here applicable, provides:

"Whoever shall bring into the United States or any place subject to the jurisdiction thereof any counterfeit plate, stone, or other thing, or engraving, photograph, print, or other impressions of the notes, bonds, obligations, or other securities...