Hawkins v. United States
| Decision Date | 23 October 1923 |
| Docket Number | 4086. |
| Citation | 293 F. 586 |
| Parties | HAWKINS et al. v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fifth Circuit |
Ben F Ray, of Birmingham, Ala. (Roderick Beddow, of Birmingham Ala., on the brief), for plaintiffs in error.
Jim C Smith, Asst. U.S. Atty., of Birmingham, Ala.
Before WALKER and BRYAN, Circuit Judges, and CALL, District Judge.
The plaintiffs in error were convicted under an indictment charging violations of section 19 of the Penal Code (Comp St. Sec. 10183), by conspiring to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate Vann Walker, a citizen of the United States, because of his having exercised a right secured to him by the Constitution or the laws of the United States, to wit, the right of reporting to a named federal prohibition agent the location of stills for the manufacture of intoxicating liquor in violation of the laws of the United States.
A witness for the prosecution, after stating that he was federal prohibition agent for the state of Alabama on December 28, 1921, and that on that day Vann Walker came to his office in the Federal Building in Birmingham, was asked questions calling for what Vann Walker then stated or reported to him. Objections to those questions on the ground that they called for hearsay testimony were overruled. We are not of opinion that those questions were subject to objection on the ground mentioned. Counts of the indictment contained allegations to the effect that on the day mentioned Vann Walker reported to and informed the witness, who was then and there a federal prohibition agent for the state of Alabama an officer of the United States, duly and legally acting as such in the discharge of his duties as such officer, as to the location of certain stills for the manufacture of intoxicating liquor in violation of a law of the United States. Testimony of the witness as to his receiving such report or information was admissible, though the testimony as to what the informer stated was not legal evidence of the truth of his statements. As to the fact of the informer making the report, the testimony called for derived its value solely from the credit to be given to the witness himself, with the result that as to that fact the testimony called for and elicited was not hearsay. 2 Jones, Commentaries on Evidence, Sec. 297. It was permissible to prove the making of such a report to the federal prohibition agent, a fact alleged in...
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