Miller v. United States

• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit
• Citation: Miller v. United States, 174 F. 35 (7th Cir. 1909)
• Decision Date: 23 June 1909
• Docket Number: 1,542,1,543.
• Parties: MILLER v. UNITED STATES. MUNROE v. SAME.

174 F. 35

MILLER v. UNITED STATES.

MUNROE v. SAME.

Nos. 1,542, 1,543.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

June 23, 1909

Petition for Rehearing Overruled October 13, 1909.

Henry Russell Platt, for plaintiff in error Munroe.

Edwin W. Sims and Francis G. Hanchett, for the United States.

Before GROSSCUP, BAKER, and KOHLSAAT, Circuit Judges.

GROSSCUP Circuit Judge, delivered the opinion.

The writ of error is to a judgment of the Court below sentencing the plaintiff in error Miller to imprisonment in the house of correction of the City of Chicago for the period of three years, and to pay the costs of suit; and the plaintiff in error Munroe to imprisonment in the United States penitentiary at Fort Leavenworth for the period of three years, and to pay the costs of suit--the judgment in each case being upon a verdict of guilty upon three counts of an indictment under section 5480 of the Revised Statutes (U.S Comp. St. 1901, p. 3696). Each count of the indictment sets forth substantially the same scheme to defraud. Each is however, for a separate offense; the first based upon a letter placed in the postoffice at Chicago, and addressed to one Mattson, at Philadelphia; the second upon a letter placed in the postoffice at Chicago and addressed to one Foster, at Mason, Michigan; and the third upon a letter placed in the postoffice at Chicago, addressed to one Thompson, at Lake City, Florida. The verdict was a general verdict of guilty upon the three counts and, therefore, for the three offenses and the judgment and sentence was judgment and sentence upon such general verdict.

The assignments of error cover 147 closely printed pages of the record. They challenge the sufficiency of the indictment; the correctness of the ruling of the Court in refusing, at the close of all the evidence, to direct the jury to find plaintiffs in error not guilty; the inclusion of evidence offered by the Government over the objection of plaintiffs in error; the exclusion of evidence offered by plaintiffs in error upon the objection of the Government; the charge to the jury; and the refusal of the Court to submit certain instructions asked for by plaintiffs in error-- the details of which are set forth in ninety-one different assignments. There is no occasion, however, as will be seen when the reading of this opinion is completed, to deal with these assignments in detail.

The controlling principle that seems to have governed the prosecution of the case in the Court below, and the rulings of that Court in overruling the demurrer to the indictment, and that runs through the whole trial, especially in the charge to the jury, was this: That apart from any intention upon the part of plaintiffs in error actually to deprive the persons named of the money, or other thing of value that such persons might be induced to give up, there would be an offense under section 5480, provided there were put forth, as a part of the alleged scheme, false and fraudulent pretenses, known at the time to be false and fraudulent, which were intended to deceive the persons to whom they were made, even though such pretenses would result in depriving such persons of nothing that they contributed, apart from the mere expectations excited. In other words, it is contended by the Government, and the contention is supported throughout in the rulings at the trial, that although the scheme alleged in the first two counts was not one through which any one would suffer any actual money loss or injury-- be any the worse off, except in the matter of disappointed expectations, after than before-- an offense under the Section is nevertheless committed, provided the pretenses embodied in the scheme, and the expectations excited thereby, were in fact false pretenses and a false expectation, known by the party making them to be false at the time made.

And because of the application of this view of the Section of the statute in question, there runs throughout the whole record errors that make the trial, in all its branches, erroneous.

The alleged scheme grew out of the following transactions: In January, 1905, the Marinette Gas Engine Company, whose plant and business office were at Chicago Heights, Illinois, and whose president was plaintiff in error Miller, increased its capital stock from $250,000 to $400,000, divided into four thousand shares of the par value of $100 each. The Marinette Gas Engine Company was an actual manufacturer of gas engines, employing from 100 to 150 men, and having a pay roll of about $7,000 per month, engaged in the actual selling of such engines to the public, many of which are in use in the United States, Japan, Portugal and Mexico, and had a plant and good will variously estimated at being worth from $65,000 upwards to the full par value of the Company's capitalization. The facts clearly disclose that the Company, at the time of the initiation of the alleged scheme, was not a fictitious company, but a real manufacturing company, in need, however, of additional capital.

The alleged scheme set forth in the indictment grows out of the method used to obtain this additional capital. In each of the counts, the scheme as set forth is substantially the same. In each, the particulars are the alleged false representations that the Company was desirous of opening and establishing, in good faith, in different parts of the United States, branch houses for the sale of the goods of...