Osborn v. United States
| Decision Date | 01 October 1875 |
| Citation | 23 L.Ed. 388,91 U.S. 474 |
| Parties | OSBORN v. UNITED STATES |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
ERROR to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Kansas.
1. Subject to exceptions therein prescribed, a pardon by the President restores to its recipient all rights of property lost by the offence pardoned, unless the property has by judicial process become vested in other persons.
2. A condition annexed to a pardon, that the recipient shall not by virtue of it claim any property, or the proceeds of any property, sold by the order, judgment, or decree of a court, under the confiscation laws of the United States, does not preclude him from applying to the court for the proceeds of a confiscated money-bond secured by mortgage, which were collected by the officers of the court in part by voluntary payment by the obligors, and in part by sale of the lands mortgaged. The condition is only intended to protect purchasers at judicial sale, decreed under the confiscation laws, from any claim of the original owner for the property sold or the purchase-money.
3. The proceeds of property confiscated, paid into court, are under its control until an order for their distribution is made, or they are paid into the hands of the informer entitled to them, or into the treasury of the United States.
4. Where moneys belonging to the registry of the court are withdrawn from it without authority of law, the court can, by summary proceedings, compel their restitution; and any one entitled to the moneys may apply to the court by petition for a delivery of them to him.
Submitted on printed arguments by Messrs. R. M. Corwine, Q. Corwine, J. W. English, Henry Beard, and C. H. Armes, for the plaintiff in error, and by Mr. E. S. Brown for the defendant in error.
The material questions presented in this case for our determination relate, first, to the effect of the President's pardon upon the rights of the petitioner to the proceeds of his property confiscated by the decree of the District Court; and, second, to the power of the court to compel restitution to its registry of moneys illegally received by its former officers.
In May, 1863, the District Court of Kansas decreed the condemnation and forfeiture to the United States of the several bonds and mortgages described in the information filed by the government. In June following, it ordered that the several debtors on these bonds should, within five months thereafter, pay into court the money due by them respectively; and that, in default of such payment, the clerk should issue to the marshal orders for the sale of the mortgaged property, upon which he should proceed as on execution under the laws of Kansas. Some of the debtors paid the amounts due by them into court; but the majority of them failed in this respect, and orders for the sale of the property mortgaged were issued to the marshal. To him the greater number paid without sale; but, in some instances, sales were made. Over $20,000 in this way came into the possession of officers of the court.
There were at the time numerous other confiscation cases pending in the court, and the moneys received from them were indiscriminately mixed with the moneys received in the cases against the property of the petitioner. None of the moneys received in any of the cases was paid into the treasury of the United States, and no order was made by the court for any such payment. Some of them were deposited in a banking-house at Leavenworth, designated as the place of deposit of moneys paid into court, and afterwards drawn out; some were obtained by officers of the court, and to an extent greatly in excess of their legal charges; and some of them were paid to the judge. The moneys from the different confiscation cases, being indiscriminately mixed, would seem to have been taken by the officers of the court whenever funds were needed by them, without regard to the sources from which they were derived, or the propriety of their application to the purposes for which they were used.
In April, 1866, the petitioner applied to the court for leave to file a petition for the restoration to him of the proceeds of his property, after deducting the costs of the legal proceedings, alleging that he had been pardoned by the President of the United States, and setting forth a copy of the pardon. The pardon was issued in September, 1865, and was in terms a full pardon and amnesty for all offences committed by the petitioner, arising from participation, direct or indirect, in the rebellion, subject to certain conditions. One of these conditions provided that the petitioner should pay all costs which may have accrued in proceedings instituted or pending against his person or property before the acceptance of the pardon. Another condition was, that the petitioner should not by virtue of the pardon claim any property, or the proceeds of any property, which had been sold by the order, judgment, or decree of a court under the confiscation laws of the United States.
The District Court refused the application; but the Circuit Court, on appeal, reversed its order, and allowed the petition to be filed. The District Court held, it would seem, that...
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