Joseph Ralph Burton v. United States

• Decision Date: 21 May 1906
• Docket Number: No. 539,539
• Citation: 26 S.Ct. 688,202 U.S. 344,50 L.Ed. 1057
• Parties: JOSEPH RALPH BURTON, Plff. in Err. , v. UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

202 U.S. 344

26 S.Ct. 688

50 L.Ed. 1057

JOSEPH RALPH BURTON, Plff. in Err.,

v UNITED STATES.

No. 539.

Argued April 3, 4, 1906.

Decided May 21, 1906.

Messrs. John F. Dillon, B. P. Waggener, F. W. Lehmann, Harry Hubbard, W. H. Rossington, W. K. Haynes, and W. P. Hackney for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 345-355 intentionally omitted]

Page 355

Assistant Attorney General Robb for defendant in error.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 355-358 intentionally omitted]

Page 358

Mr. Justice Harlan delivered the opinion of the court:

This criminal prosecution is founded upon the following sections of the Revised Statutes:

'Sec. 3929 (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 2686). The Postmaster General may, upon evidence satisfactory to him that any person or company is engaged in conducting any lottery, gift enterprise, or scheme for the distribution of money, or of any real or personal property by lot, chance, or drawing of any kind, or that any person or company is conducting any other scheme or device for obtaining money or property of any kind through the mails by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, instruct postmasters at any postoffice at which registered letters arrive directed to any such person or company, . . . whether such agent or representative is acting as an individual or as a firm, bank, corporation, or association of any kind, to return all such

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registered letters to the postmaster at the office at which they were originally mailed with the word 'fraudulent' plainly written or stamped upon the outside thereof; and all such letters so returned to such postmasters shall be by them returned to the writers thereof, under such regulations as the Postmaster General may prescribe. . . .' By the act of March 2d, 1895, chap. 191, this section was extended and made applicable to all letters or other matter sent by mail.' 28 Stat. at L. 963, 964, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, pp. 3178, 2688.

'Sec. 4041. The Postmaster General may, upon evidence satisfactory to him that any person or company is engaged in conducting any lottery, gift enterprise, or scheme for the distribution of money or of any real or personal property by lot, chance, or drawing of any kind, or that any person or company is conducting any other scheme for obtaining money or property of any kind through the mails by means of false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises, forbid the payment by any postmaster to said person or company of any postal money orders drawn to his or its order or in his or its favor, or to the agent of any such person or company, whether such agent is acting as an individual or as a firm, bank, corporation, or association of any kind, and may provide by regulation for the return to the remitters of the sums named in such money orders. . . .' 26 Stat. at L. 466, chap. 908, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 2749.

'Sec. 1782 (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 1212). No Senator, Representative, or Delegate, after his election and during his continuance in office, and no head of a department, or other officer or clerk in the employ of the government, shall receive or agree to receive any compensation whatever, directly or indirectly, for any services rendered, or to be rendered, to any person, either by himself or another, in relation to any proceeding, contract, claim, controversy, charge, accusation, arrest, or other matter or thing in which the United States is a party, or directly or indirectly interested, before any department, court-martial, bureau, officer, or any civil, military, or naval commission whatever. Every person offending against this section shall be deemed guilty of a mis-

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demeanor, and shall be imprisoned not more than two years, and fined not more than ten thousand dollars, and shall, moreover, by conviction therefor, be rendered forever thereafter incapable of holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the government of the United States.' 13 Stat. at L. 123, chap. 119.

The plaintiff in error was indicted in the district court of the United States for the eastern district of Missouri for a violation of § 1782, the offense being alleged to have been committed at St. Louis. The accused was found guilty, and, on writ of error, the judgment was reversed by this court, and a new trial ordered, upon the ground, among others, that, according to the facts disclosed in that case, the offense charged was not committed in the state of Missouri, where the accused was tried. 196 U. S. 283, 49 L. ed. 482, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 243.

Subsequently, the defendant was tried under a new indictment (the present one) charging him with certain violations of § 1782. The indictment contained eight counts. Stating the case now only in a general way, the first, second, fourth, sixth, and eighth counts charged, in substance, that the defendant, a Senator of the United States, had agreed to receive compensation, namely, the sum of $2,500, for services to be rendered by him for the Rialto Grain & Securities Company, a corporation (to be hereafter called the Rialto Company), in relation to a proceeding, matter, and thing, in which the United States was interested, before the Postoffice Department, those counts differing only as to the nature of the interest which the United States had in such proceeding, matter, and thing; some of the counts alleging that the United States was directly, others that it was indirectly, interested in such proceeding, matter, and thing. The third, fifth, and seventh counts charged that the defendant did receive compensation to the amount of $500 for the services alleged to have been so rendered by him, those three counts differing only as to the nature of the interest, whether direct or indirect, which the United States had in the alleged proceeding, matter, and thing before the Postoffice Department.

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The defendant demurred to each count. The government, at that stage of the prosecution, dismissed the indictment as to the fourth and fifth counts and the court overruled the demurrer as to all the other counts. The accused filed a plea in bar to the third and seventh counts. To that plea the government filed an answer, to which we will advert hereafter. A demurrer to that answer was overruled, and, defendant declining to plead further, the plea in bar was denied. He was then arraigned, tried, and found guilty on the first, second, third, sixth, seventh, and eighth counts. No judgment or sentence was pronounced on the first, second, and eighth counts, because they covered the transaction and offense mentioned in the sixth count. And as the third count covered the transaction and offense embraced by the seventh count, no judgment or sentence was pronounced on it.

On the sixth count the defendant was sentenced to be imprisoned for six months in the county jail and to pay a fine of $2,000; on the seventh, to be imprisoned for six months in the county jail and fined $500. It was declared or recited in the judgment on each of those counts that the accused, by his conviction, 'is rendered forever hereafter incapable of holding any office of honor, trust, or profit under the government of the United States.'

It will be well to bring out fully the allegations of the two counts upon which the sentences were based. They will show the nature of the proceeding, matter, or thing before the Postoffice Department, in respect of which the defendant was indicted.

The sixth count alleged that on the 18th day of November, 1902, the defendant was a Senator of the United States from the state of Kansas, having been theretofore elected for a term of six years, expiring on the 4th day of March, 1907, and the Rialto Company was a corporation engaged in the business of buying, selling, and dealing in grain and securities, having its principal offices at the city of St. Louis, Missouri; that before and on the above day there was pending before

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the Postoffice Department of the United States, and before the then Postmaster General of the said United States, a certain proceeding in which the United States was then indirectly interested, for determining the question whether that corporation was engaged in conducting a scheme for obtaining money through the mails of the said United States, by means of false and fraudulent pretenses, representations, and promises, made by the said corporation, and whether the said Postmaster General should instruct the postmaster at the postoffice at St. Louis, the same then being a postoffice at which registered letters were then arriving, directed to the said corporation, to return all such letters to the postmasters at the several postoffices at which they were or should thereafter be originally mailed, with the word 'fraudulent' plainly written or stamped upon the outside thereof, to be by such postmasters returned to the writers thereof under the regulations of the said Postoffice Department, and in the same manner to dispose of all other letters and matter sent by mail to the said postoffice directed to the said corporation, 'all of which the said Postmaster General might then have lawfully done, upon evidence satisfactory to him that the said corporation was engaged in conducting such a scheme to defraud as that in this count mentioned; and, further, that before and on the day in this count first aforesaid the facts pertaining to the questions in this count mentioned were under investigation by the said Postoffice Department and the said Postmaster General and, on that day, were still undetermined by the said Postmaster General. And the grand jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further present that the said Joseph Ralph Burton, Senator, as in this count of this indictment aforesaid, on the said 18th day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and two, after his said election as such Senator, and during his continuance in office as such Senator, at St. Louis, aforesaid, in the...