Sam Yick v. United States

• Decision Date: 19 March 1917
• Docket Number: 2542.
• Citation: 240 F. 60
• Parties: SAM YICK et al. v. UNITED STATES.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit

240 F. 60

SAM YICK et al. v. UNITED STATES.

No. 2542.

United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit.

March 19, 1917

Mott &amp Dillon and Isidore B. Dockweiler, all of Los Angeles, Cal (Thomas A. J. Dockweiler and G. C. O'Connell, both of Los Angeles, Cal., of counsel), for plaintiffs in error.

Albert Schoonover, U.S. Atty., and J. Robert O'Connor and Clyde Moody, Asst. U.S. Attys., all of Los Angeles, Cal.

Before GILBERT, ROSS, and HUNT, Circuit Judges.

ROSS Circuit Judge.

The plaintiffs in error were convicted under an indictment charging them with the crime of conspiracy, in that they did on the 24th day of August, 1911, within the county of Kern in the Southern district of California, willfully unlawfully, and feloniously conspire and agree, together with divers other persons to the grand jurors unknown, to unlawfully bring and cause to be brought into the United States from divers places in the republic of Mexico 'certain Chinese persons, to wit, Dock Yook, See Chew, and Wah Sung, each being a Chinese person, and any and all other and additional Chinese persons who were then and those who would thereafter be in said republic of Mexico, desiring and intending to enter the United States,' none of whom being entitled under the laws of the United States to enter this country. The indictment also set out certain alleged overt acts of one of the alleged conspirators, consisting of the purchase of a certain railway ticket by him in pursuance of the conspiracy for his transportation from Bakersfield to the city of San Diego, and in further pursuance of the alleged conspiracy his leaving that city for the town of Tia Juana, Mexico, for the purpose of arranging to bring three certain named Chinese persons across the international boundary into the United States.

It appears from the evidence introduced on the trial by the government that one Morse was its local inspector of immigration at Bakersfield during the times in question, having gone there in that capacity about the 1st of January, 1911, and that in the performance of his duties he had frequent occasion to see the defendant Sam Yick (whom he speaks of in his testimony as the principal Chinaman in that vicinity) in regard to Chinamen in and around Bakersfield; that on the 8th day of May, 1911, he had a talk with Sam Yick in reference to smuggling Chinese into this country, having gone to Yick's store to inquire about a Chinaman named Woo Jung Sing; that Yick told him he knew the Chinaman, and that he was on a ranch about five miles out of Bakersfield, and that he would take the inspector out to see him, as he wanted to have a talk with the latter anyway; that Yick did so the afternoon of the same day. We insert the following from the testimony of the inspector in regard to that trip:

'On the way out he asked me what salary I was getting, and whether I had a family to support, and if I could save any money off the salary I was getting, and if I had any opportunity to make money on the side, and how much money I made on the side; but I answered, rather shortly, I didn't consider it any of his business, and for the time being the subject was dropped. Then I went out there and examined this man, and on the way back he brought up the matter again, and he asked me if I didn't want to make more money than I was making, and I asked him how he meant. Well, he said that I arrested a good many Chinese around Bakersfield, and that if I would bring those Chinese in his store, instead of taking them to jail, he would pay me $100 for each one brought there, if I would release them. I asked him who would pay the money, and he said he would individually. Well, he said these Chinese would pay the money back to him, and he would charge them interest. He would make something off it, and I would make $100. I told him I would consider it. Then he said, if I wanted to make more money than that, if I could prepare papers for some Chinese that were in Mexico, so as to enable them to get to Bakersfield, he would be able to give me a good deal of business in that line, and I asked him where the Chinese would come from. Well, he said he had some friends in Juarez, Mexico, that wanted to come to Bakersfield; that he had letters from them in reference to coming here, and he wanted to know if I couldn't prepare papers purporting to show that these men were native-born citizens of the United States that would allow them to pass the inspectors on the way. He asked me how many inspectors there were between El Paso and Bakersfield, and I told him there were a great many located along the way, and he said I understood about making these papers, and ought to be able to make a paper that would pass inspection down there; and I told him it would be pretty hard to do, but I would see what I could determine on it-- see what could be done; and then he said it was so hard to bring them from Juarez that the best proposition would be to bring them in from down at Tia Juana, from Ensenada; that there was a lot of Chinese there that would come. Prior to this I had asked him, or he had told me, how much there would be in it for these Chinese in Juarez. He said there were two or three there that he knew would come, and probably more would come if they could; and he said, if I could fix up these papers so that they would pass, I would get $150 for each paper; and he said it would be easier to get them in from Ensenada, if it looked good to me, and I wanted to accept money that way, that he would bring in a good many Chinese from Ensenada, that he would write down immediately and see how many there were there, that he knew of several that would come and he knew there were a good many more, and that if I could get the Chinese in from Ensenada and bring them to Bakersfield and pay for them he would pay me $250 for each Chinese so brought in; and I told him I had never drawn up any papers of that sort, and would have to get some data as to the best way to draw them up, and so forth, and he asked me if I couldn't use my seal. He supposed that I had a seal similar to the commissioner's seal.'

That testimony clearly tended to show an attempt by Sam Yick to bribe the inspector. The record further shows that on the same day, May 8th, Morse reported the matter to his superior officer at Los Angeles, who, after consultation with the then Assistant United States Attorney there, instructed Morse 'to go ahead and try to apprehend him (Sam Yick) by going in with him'; that the next conversation that Morse had with Yick was in the store of the latter in Bakersfield about 9 o'clock in the evening of May 17th, in response to the request of Sam Yick, which is thus stated by Morse in his testimony:

'Mr. Giddings went to Sam Yick's store with me on the night of May 17th and stayed outside the store. I went into the store and saw Sam Yick. He took me to a room in the rear of the store and asked me if I had not been able to prepare any papers by that time. I told him that I had not done anything on it up to that time, that I had been busy; and he said that he had thought the matter over and concluded that he could make a good deal of money by going into the business, that he had already written to Ensenada to make arrangements for the Chinamen to come from there, and that he had in mind in particular four whom he knew would be glad to come right away, and that $250 apiece would be available for these four as soon as they arrived here at Bakersfield, and he asked me if I would be able to have the papers prepared for them by the time they got to Bakersfield. I told him that I did not know for certain. He told me to go to work and get the papers ready as soon as I could, because the men would be ready to come over at any time; he said I would not be expected to assist in getting the men over, that he would look out for that end of it altogether; but he said that he would expect me to get the men past the immigration officers on the way. He asked me who inspected the trains at San Diego, and if I knew some way I could get the men past the inspecting officer there, and he asked me if I couldn't get the inspecting officer at San Diego to go in with me on the proposition; he said that if I got $200 I could afford to give him (the inspecting officer at San Diego) $50, and if I got $250, I could afford to keep $200 and give this other man $50. I told him that I thought, perhaps, it could be arranged that way; he then told me that he would send a man down to San Diego to carry these men to Bakersfield, and he suggested that I should have the inspector in San Diego come up to Bakersfield and meet the man who was to go down to guide the Chinese coming across, so that the San Diego inspector would know him in case he saw him with the Chinese and would not arrest them. He said that he had written for the photographs of the four Chinese that were to come over, and he was expecting to hear from them at any time, and as soon as he heard from them he would let me know. Mr. Giddings is the man in whose house I was living in at Bakersfield at the time, and during this conversation I had with Sam Yick at his store Mr. Giddings was right across the street from the store; he walked from his house down to the store with me.'

The next conversation Morse had, according to his testimony, with Yick, was in the evening of August 10th, in the back room of the latter's store, in which conversation, according to the testimony of the witness, Yick said he had heard from Ensenada two or three times since he had last seen the witness, and had received the photographs of four Chinese, who he said were ready to come as soon as they could get the papers prepared for them, and asked the witness whether he had made arrangements with the inspector at San Diego to...