Frederick Hyde v. John Shine

• Decision Date: 29 May 1905
• Docket Number: No. 406,406
• Parties: FREDERICK A. HYDE, Appt. , v. JOHN H. SHINE
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

199 U.S. 62

25 S.Ct. 760

50 L.Ed. 90

FREDERICK A. HYDE, Appt.,

v JOHN H. SHINE.

No. 406.

Argued February 21, 23, 1905.

Decided May 29, 1905.

This is an appeal from an order of the circuit court, denying the appellant's application for writs of habeas corpus and certiorari, and dismissing his petition therefor.

The proceedings which culminated in the arrest and remanding of the appellant originated in an indictment found in the supreme court of the District of Columbia against the appellant and John A. Benson, Henry P. Dimond, and Joost H. Schneider, charging them with a conspiracy, under Rev. Stat. § 5440, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 3676, 'to defraud the United States out of the possession and use of, and the title to, divers large tracts of the public lands of the United States.' All of the defendants except Schneider are residents of San Francisco, California. Upon a complaint made, based upon such indictment, before a United States commissioner for the northern district of California, Hyde was arrested under Rev. Stat. § 1014, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 716, taken before a commissioner, and held to bail to answer the indictment in the sum of $50,000, and in default thereof was committed to the custody of the defendant, Shine, to await the order of the district judge for his removal to the District of Columbia, or until he should be discharged by due course of law. Upon such order of removal being issued (United States v. Hyde, 132 Fed. 545), appellant presented his petition to the circuit court for the northern district of California, praying for writs of habeas corpus and certiorari, and for his discharge from imprisonment, which were denied, and this appeal taken.

Messrs. William B. Hornblower and Charles C. Cole for appellant.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 64-69 intentionally omitted] Solicitor General Hoyt and Messrs. Francis J. Heney and Arthur B. Pugh for appellee.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 69-75 intentionally omitted]

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Mr. Justice Brown delivered the opinion of the court:

The petitioner assigns as error——

1. That Rev. Stat. § 1014, does not authorize a removal from a judicial district in a state to the District of Columbia;

2. That the supreme court of the District of Columbia has no jurisdiction over the alleged offense charged in the indictment;

3. That the indictment charges no offense against the United States;

4. That the evidence introduced before the commissioner proved that there was no probable cause for believing him guilty of the offense, and that the writ of certiorari should have been issued to bring the record before the court, and upon its inspection the appellant should have been discharged.

1. The first assignment is practically disposed of by the recent case of Benson v. Henkel, 198 U. S. 1, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 569, 49 L. ed.—, in which one of the codefendants of the petitioner in this case, who had been arrested in Brooklyn, was held to be properly removed to the

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District of Columbia under Rev. Stat. § 1014. No additional considerations being presented, that case must be treated as controlling.

2. The second assignment, that the supreme court of the District of Columbia had no jurisdiction of the alleged offense, is based upon the proposition that the conspiracy, if any existed, was entered into either in the northern district of California or the district of Oregon; and that nothing but overt acts in pursuance of the conspiracy were done in the District of Columbia. Granting that the gravamen of the offense is the conspiracy, and that, at common law, it was neither necessary to aver nor prove an overt act (Rex v. Gill, 2 Barn. & Ald. 205; Bannon v. United States, 156 U. S. 464-468, 39 L. ed. 494-496, 15 Sup. Ct. Rep. 467), an overt act is necessary, under Rev. Stat. § 5440, to complete the offense. The language of the section is, 'if two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such parties do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, all the parties to such conspiracy shall be liable,' etc.

It was aptly said by Mr. Justice Woods in United States v. Britton, 108 U. S. 199, 204, 27 L. ed. 698, 700, 2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 531, that the offense consisted in the conspiracy, and that the overt act afforded a locus penitentioe, so that, before the act done, either one or all of the parties may abandon their design, and thus avoid the penalty prescribed by the statute. As the indictment in this case charges that the conspiracy was entered into in the city of Washington, it becomes unnecessary to consider whether an indictment will lie within the jurisdiction where the overt act was committed, though there are many authorities to that effect. King v. Brisac, 4 East, 164; People v. Mather, 4 Wend. 229, 21 Am. Dec. 122; Com. v. Gillespie, 7 Serg. & R. 469, 10 Am. Dec. 475; Noyes v. State, 41 N. J. L. 418; Com. v. Corlies, 3 Brewst. 575.

We have ourselves decided that, if the conspiracy be entered into within the jurisdiction of the trial court, the indictment will lie there, though the overt act is shown to have been committed

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in another jurisdiction, or even in a foreign country. Dealy v. United States, 152 U. S. 539, 38 L. ed. 545, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 680; Re Palliser (Palliser v. United States), 136 U. S. 257, 34 L. ed. 514, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1034; King v. Brisac, 4 East, 164; Rev. Stat. § 731, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 585.

In this connection it is also suggested that, as the conspiracy is alleged in all the counts to have been entered into prior to January 1, 1902, as well as the overt act charged in fifteen of the counts, the supreme court of the District of Columbia cannot take cognizance of the case under the new code which took effect upon that date, and that we must look to the law prior thereto to determine the jurisdiction of that court. By § 23, chap. 35, of the Compiled Statutes of the District of Columbia, it was enacted that 'the criminal court of the District of Columbia shall have jurisdiction of all crimes and misdemeanors committed in said district, not lawfully triable in any other court, and which are required by law to be prosecuted by indictment or information.'

The argument is made that, as the conspiracy in this case was triable in California or Oregon, as well as in the District of Columbia, it was lawfully triable in another court, and hence the supreme court of the District of Columbia has no jurisdiction. We are not impressed with the force of this contention. Chapter 35 provides for the organization of the judiciary of the District of Columbia, and relates exclusively to the jurisdiction and powers of the several courts of the District, providing that one of the justices may hold a criminal court, and that such court shall have jurisdiction of all crimes and misdemeanors committed in said District not lawfully triable in any other court, and which are required by law to be prosecuted by indictment or information. It is entirely clear that this has reference only to other courts within the District, and was not intended to change the law with respect to the general jurisdiction of courts having jurisdiction of the same offense.

Although it involves a seeming hardship to commit an accused person in San Francisco for trial in the District of Columbia, the terms of Rev. Stat. § 1014, are as applicable to such a case as they would be if the arrest were made in Baltimore.

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The section makes no discrimination based upon distance, and requires the commitment to be made for trial before the court having cognizance of the offense, wherever that court may sit. Where the statute contains no exception, the courts cannot create one. Indeed, the Constitution itself requires that the trial of all crimes shall be held in the state where the crimes have been committed, and the power of Congress to order the surrender of accused persons from other states is a necessary complement to the duty of trying offenses in the jurisdiction where the crime was committed. But we do not wish to be understood as approving the practice of indicting citizens of distant states in the courts of this District, where an indictment will lie in the state of the domicil of such person, unless in exceptional cases, where the circumstances seem to demand that this course shall be taken. To require a citizen to undertake a long journey across the continent to face his accusers, and to incur the expense of taking his witnesses, and of employing counsel in a distant city, involves a serious hardship, to which he ought not to be subjected if the case can be tried in a court of his own jurisdiction.

3. The third assignment—that the indictment charges no offense against the United States—requires a statement of its substance. As it contains forty-two different counts and covers some ninety-four pages of printed matter, a consideration of each count would unnecessarily prolong this opinion. The conspiracy charged embraced certain false practices by the defendants, whereby school lands were to be obtained fraudulently from the states of California and Oregon by Hyde and Benson, (1) in the names of fictitious persons, and (2) in the names of persons not qualified to purchase the same, whereby the said Hyde and Benson were to cause and require such school lands to be relinquished by means of false and forged relinquishments, assignments, and conveyances to the United States, in exchange for public lands, to be selected, and for titles thereto by patents to be obtained by and on behalf of the said Hyde and Benson. A further element of the conspiracy

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is that defendants were, by bribery, to induce certain United States officials in the General Land Office, at Washington, in the District of Columbia, corruptly, and contrary to their official duties, to aid defendants to secure the approval of their fraudulent selections in...