John Bingham v. John Bradley

• Citation: 241 U.S. 511,36 S.Ct. 634,60 L.Ed. 1136
• Decision Date: 05 June 1916
• Docket Number: No. 592,592
• Parties: JOHN BINGHAM, Appt., v. JOHN J. BRADLEY, United States Marshal for the Northern District of Illinois
• Court: United States Supreme Court

241 U.S. 511

36 S.Ct. 634

60 L.Ed. 1136

JOHN BINGHAM, Appt.,

v JOHN J. BRADLEY, United States Marshal for the Northern District of Illinois.

No. 592.

Submitted April 4, 1916.

Decided June 5, 1916.

Mr. William Dillon for appellant.

Messrs. Benjamin S. Minor, Almon W. Bulkley, Clair E. More, Hugh B. Rowland, and Colley W. Bell for appellee.

Mr. Justice Pitney delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an appeal from a final order of the district court, denying an application for a writ of habeas corpus in an extradition case. The facts are to be gathered from the petition for the writ and the exhibits therein referred to and made a part of it, which include a sworn complaint by the British Consul General at Chicago, applying on behalf of the government of the Dominion of Canada for the extradition of appellant to Montreal, certain ex parte affidavits taken in Montreal, and a complaint made and warrant issued against appellant in that city, and abstract of the oral testimony taken before the United States Commissioner at Chicago, and the warrant of commitment issued by the Commissioner, under which appellant is held in custody.

The complaint of the Consul General sets forth on information and belief that appellant, in the month of February, 1915, was guilty of the crime of receiving and retaining in his possession money to the amount of $1,500 in bills of the Bank of Montreal, the property of that bank, knowing the same to have been stolen; that a warrant has been issued by the police magistrate of the city of Montreal for the apprehension of appellant for the crime memtioned; that appellant is guilty of the indictable offense of receiving money knowing it to have been stolen, and is a fugitive from justice from the district of Montreal, province of Quebec, and Dominion of Canada, and is now within the territory of the United States; that the offense of which he is charged is an offense within the treaties between the United States and Great Britain; and that deponent's information is based upon duly au- thenticated copies of a warrant issued by the police magistrate of Montreal and of the complaint or information upon which that warrant was issued, and upon certain depositions of witnesses submitted to be filed with the present complaint. The reference is to the Montreal affidavits, which set forth in substance that in the month of September, 1911,a branch of the Bank of Montreal at New Westminister, British Columbia, was broken into and a large sum of money ($271,721) stolen from the bank, including a considerable number of $5 bills of the Bank of Montreal, seventy-eight of these being identified by their numbers; that on February 10, 1915, in the city of Montreal, appellant purchased a diamond ring from one Eaves, a jeweler, and paid for it $250, of which $245 was composed of new Bank of Montreal $5 bills, more than thirty of these being identified by the numbers as among those stolen; that on February 9, 1915, one Wakefield purchased in Montreal some travelers' checks, paying for them in part with fifty new $5 bills of the Bank of Montreal, of which twenty or more were identified as being a part of the stolen money; and that on February 10, 1915, Wakefield procured from a firm of bankers in Montreal an exchange of Canadian bills for American currency, the exchange including fifty new $5 bills of the Bank of Montreal, of which fifteen or more were identified as being a part of those stolen.

Appellant having been apprehended, a hearing was had before the United States Commissioner, at which the above-mentioned documents were introduced and testimony was given tending to show that appellant and Wakefield were together in Montreal on the 9th and 10th of February, 1915, cooperating in the exchange of the stolen bills for travelers' checks and United States currency; and that on the evening of February 10th they left Montreal together in a manner indicating an intent to evade detection, and went to Chicago, where almost immediately they began systematic efforts to procure the exchange of Bank of Montreal bills for United States currency.

The Commissioner deeming the evidence sufficient to sustain the charge, the warrant of commitment was issued, the proceedings and evidence being certified in due course to the Secretary of State, pursuant to § 5270, Rev. Stat. (Comp. Stat. 1913, § 10,110).

Under the applicable provisions of our treaties with Great Britain (treaty of 1842, art. 10, 8 Stat. at L. 572, 576; treaty of 1889, art 1, 26 Stat. at L. 1508, 1509), there is included among the extraditable offenses that of 'receiving any money, valuable security, or other property, knowing the same to have been embezzled, stolen, or fraudulently obtained.'

In behalf of appellant it is objected that while the Criminal Code of Canada defines as indictable offenses (a) the receiving or retaining in possession anything obtained by any offense punishable on indictment knowing it to have been so obtained, and (b) the receiving or retaining in possession any money or valuable security or other thing, the stealing whereof is declared to be an indictable offense, knowing the same to have been stolen, the offense charged in the complaint filed and in the warrant issued in Montreal and in the Consul General's complaint is that of receiving and retaining in his possession money, etc., knowing it had been stolen. The argument is that the Canadian statute treats receiving and retaining as distinct offenses, connecting them with the disjunctive 'or,' while the complaints...