Shaw v. United States, 5792.
| Citation | 41 F.2d 26 |
| Decision Date | 16 May 1930 |
| Docket Number | No. 5792.,5792. |
| Parties | SHAW et al. v. UNITED STATES. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (5th Circuit) |
L. H. Ellis and L. L. Saxon, both of Columbiana, Ala., for appellants.
Charles B. Kennamer, U. S. Atty., of Birmingham, Ala., and J. Osmond Middleton, Asst. U. S. Atty., of Clanton, Ala.
Before BRYAN and FOSTER, Circuit Judges, and HOLMES, District Judge.
The appellants and 17 others were indicted on six counts for conspiracy to violate the National Prohibition Act (27 USCA). Some of the defendants pleaded guilty, six were acquitted, and nine convicted by a jury. Among those convicted were the appellants, the others having accepted the sentence imposed. The allegations of the indictment and the evidence were to the effect that one of the defendants was sheriff of Shelby county, Ala., and some of the others were his deputies, and that all of them entered into a conspiracy with manufacturers and dealers in illicit liquor to violate said act by the officers lending aid to the illicit operators, by advising them in advance when raids would be made, and by protecting them from apprehension and prosecution in various ways.
The evidence in the case ran over a number of years, and necessarily took a wide range, as the proof of the conspiracy was entirely circumstantial, and 84 overt acts were alleged in each count. The proof on the part of the government consisted chiefly in the testimony of bootleggers, liquor makers, rum runners, and persons engaged generally in the illicit traffic in intoxicating liquors.
There are 97 assignments of error, all of which, except two or three, assail rulings upon the admissibility or exclusion of certain testimony.
In a case such as this, with 20 defendants charged with a continuing conspiracy extending over a series of years, and resting entirely upon circumstantial evidence, great latitude is necessarily allowed in the admission of testimony. The jury should have for its consideration every fact which has a reasonable tendency, however slight, to prove the existence of the conspiracy.
"Much discretion is left to the trial court, and its ruling will be sustained, if the testimony which is admitted tends even remotely to establish the ultimate fact." Clune v. United States, 159 U. S. 593, 16 S. Ct. 125, 126, 40 L. Ed. 269.
It is claimed that, though the statute of limitations is three years, U. S. Code, title 18, c. 16, § 582 (18 USCA § 582), the court permitted, over the objection of appellants,...
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