Manning v. Biddle
| Decision Date | 07 August 1926 |
| Docket Number | No. 7285.,7285. |
| Citation | 14 F.2d 518 |
| Parties | MANNING v. BIDDLE, Warden. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
W. W. Botts, of Mexico, Mo., for appellant.
Al. F. Williams, U. S. Atty., Alton H. Skinner, Frank H. McFarland, and John N. Free, Asst. U. S. Attys., all of Topeka, Kan., for appellee.
Before SANBORN, Circuit Judge, and WOODROUGH and SCOTT, District Judges.
The appellant was denied a writ of habeas corpus by the district court in Kansas, and remanded to serve out a sentence of fine and imprisonment at Leavenworth for ten years imposed upon him by a district court in Missouri. The appeal is to review the order.
Appellant claims that the indictment upon which his conviction and sentence are founded was merely an attempt to charge an impossible offense, colorless and wholly void, and that his imprisonment is without lawful authority or justification.
The indictment is very lengthy because of the number of counts which, however, differ from each other only in the matter of names and dates, the several transactions being of the same kind. The effort of the composition is to impute an offense to the accused, not as a principal in the ordinary sense of being an actor in the commission of a crime, but as a principal in the statutory sense in which an aider and abettor is defined to be a principal. Section 332 of the Criminal Code (Comp. St. § 10506), provides: "Whoever directly commits any act constituting an offense defined in any law of the United States, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces, or procures its commission, is a principal."
This indictment entirely excludes any idea that the accused directly committed any act constituting an offense defined in any federal statute, but seeks to hold him as the aider and abettor of one Charles V. Eckert. The acts which are charged against Eckert constituting his alleged crimes are set forth in the same language contained in an indictment laid against Eckert and considered by this court in Eckert v. United States, 7 F.(2d) 258.
The charge against Eckert, both in this indictment and in the indictment against him (omitting the last count in the Eckert indictment, which is not relevant) was, in substance, that as a druggist he filled certain prescriptions calling for narcotic drugs, and in accordance with the prescriptions so dispensed the drugs to the persons named therein who were addicts; that the prescriptions were issued by a duly registered physician, but with the purpose of satisfying the depraved appetites of the addicts and not as medicine, all of which was well known to Eckert.
On the review of the conviction of Eckert this court carefully considered the provisions of the Harrison Anti-Narcotic Drug Act, as amended (U. S. Comp. Stat. Ann. Supp. 1919, § 6287g et seq.), under which the prosecution proceeded, but no language is found in the law penalizing the acts that were charged against Eckert. In the indictment he was admitted to be a licensed druggist registered with the collector of internal revenue, and this court finds...
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State v. Montanez, No. 17087.
..."the act constituting the offense was in fact committed by someone" is prerequisite to aiding and abetting conviction); Manning v. Biddle, 14 F.2d 518, 519 (8th Cir.1926) ("it is an essential thing [to an aiding and abetting conviction] that a crime was actually committed"). Like Connecticu......
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Nigro v. United States
...sense only by proof that he participated as an aider and abettor or as a conspirator, in an illegal sale by a druggist. Manning v. Biddle, 8 Cir., 14 F.2d 518; Jackson v. United States, 8 Cir., 297 F. 20; Doremus v. United States, 5 Cir., 262 F. 849, 13 A.L.R. 853; Di Preta v. United States......
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United States v. Roberts, 8227.
...States, 8 Cir., 189 F.2d 247. See Harris v. United States, 8 Cir., 288 F.2d 790, particularly the concurring opinion; cf. Manning v. Biddle, 8 Cir., 14 F.2d 518; Aderhold v. Schiltz, 5 Cir., 73 F.2d 381; Dawes v. Gough, 5 Cir., 170 F.2d 396. When it affirmatively appears, though outside of ......
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Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, Ala
...v. United States, 196 F.2d 165 (C.A.10th Cir. 1952); Karrell v. United States, 181 F.2d 981, 985 (C.A.9th Cir. 1950); Manning v. Biddle, 14 F.2d 518 (C.A.8th Cir. 1926); Kelley v. Florida, 79 Fla. 182, 83 So. 909, 16 A.L.R. 1465 (1920); Commonwealth v. Long, 246 Ky. 809, 811—812, 56 S.W.2d ......