De Long v. United States

• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit
• Writing for the Court: KENYON, Circuit , and TRIEBER and PHILLIPS
• Citation: De Long v. United States, 4 F.2d 244 (8th Cir. 1925)
• Decision Date: 03 February 1925
• Docket Number: 6649.,No. 6648,6648
• Parties: DE LONG v. UNITED STATES. HAAKER v. SAME.

4 F.2d 244 (1925)

DE LONG v. UNITED STATES.^*

HAAKER v. SAME.

Nos. 6648, 6649.

Circuit Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit.

February 3, 1925.

Carlos W. Goltz, of Sioux City, Iowa, for plaintiffs in error.

George A. Keyser, Asst. U. S. Atty., of Omaha, Neb. (James C. Kinsler, U. S. Atty., and Andrew C. Scott, Asst. U. S. Atty., both of Omaha, Neb., on the brief), for the United States.

Before KENYON, Circuit Judge, and TRIEBER and PHILLIPS, District Judges.

TRIEBER, District Judge.

As both cases involved identical matters, they were by agreement of parties consolidated and tried together in the court below and argued together in this court. The prosecution in each case was on an information.

The informations charged the plaintiffs in error and their wives with selling intoxicating liquors in violation of the National Prohibition Act (Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1923, § 10071¼ et seq.). The informations against the wives of both defendants were dismissed, and upon a trial to a jury the plaintiffs in error, hereafter referred to as the defendants, were found guilty. There were a number of assignments of error, but the only assignments relied on by counsel for the defendants in his brief are that the court erred in sustaining objections to a certain question propounded by counsel for the defendants to G. W. Coffman and Glenn Farley.

The bill of exceptions fails to show that the witness Farley was asked the question in issue; in fact, the only question asked and answered by him, as appears from the record, was about meeting the witness Coffman in Winnebago, Neb., and without objection he answered that he did, Mr. Gumm, the federal prohibition agent or Indian agent, having introduced them. The question asked Mr. Coffman on cross-examination, and to which an objection was sustained by the court and an exception saved, was:

"Mr. Coffman, the purpose of you and Mr. Farley going to those places was at the instigation of Mr. Gumm and Mr. Mann, of the Winnebago Agency? The purpose for which you went to the home of John Haaker was to induce him to sell you liquor. Is that true, or not?"

Counsel for defendants contends that by this question he sought to show that the defendants were entrapped by the prohibition enforcement officers to commit the offenses charged, and also that by reason of the purchases made by these officers from the defendants, they were accomplices. That the officers, in making the purchases of the liquor from the defendants, were not accomplices, does not require the citation of many authorities. See Singer v. United States (C. C. A.) 278 F. 415, ...