Staunton v. Goshorn

• Decision Date: 02 May 1899
• Docket Number: 295.
• Citation: 94 F. 52
• Parties: STAUNTON et al. v. GOSHORN.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

94 F. 52

STAUNTON et al. v. GOSHORN.

No. 295.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

May 2, 1899

This is a writ of error to the judgment of the circuit court of the United States for the district of West Virginia, rendered on the 11th of August, 1898, in an action for malicious prosecution pending in said court, wherein the defendant in error here was plaintiff, and the plaintiffs in error were defendants. The case grew out of a criminal prosecution in the criminal court of Kanawha county. W.Va., against the defendant in error inaugurated under the following circumstances:

J. W Goshorn, defendant in error, had been for two terms, of six years each, expiring on the 1st of January, 1897, clerk of the county court of Kanawha county, in the state of West Virginia. On the said 1st day of January, 1897, E. W Staunton succeeded him as clerk for the term of six years having been elected at the preceding election. The plaintiff in error Peter Silman was sheriff of the said county from the 1st day of January, 1893, to January, 1897, because the chief deputy clerk of the said E. W. Staunton; and plaintiff in error Robert A. Coleman, who had been, for several years prior and up to the expiration of his last term of office deputy clerk for defendant in error. Goshorn, continued to act as such deputy clerk for Staunton, Goshorn's successor. The defendant in error, J. W. Goshorn, and the plaintiffs in error Staunton, Silman, and Jarret, were unfriendly to each other, growing out of a political feud theretofore existing in the said county. During the week preceding the 23d of November, 1897, the day on which defendant in error was arrested, plaintiff in error Robert A. Coleman informed his principal, Staunton, and said Jarret, and Silman, that the defendant in error, Goshorn, had had several conversations with him in reference to getting from the clerk's office certain road orders, allowed by the county court of said county to Silman in the settlement of his accounts as sheriff, in which he said that, if he could get hold of these papers, he would then have the newspapers make an investigation, and publish the fact that there were no vouchers for the allowance in question, which would create a great stir, and get the county court, Silman, and Staunton into trouble; and that he had proposed to him (Coleman) to take the road orders out of the clerk's office, and that he (Goshorn) would destroy them. Upon receiving this information, Staunton, Silman, and Jarret determined to lay a trap to catch Goshorn, if he took the papers, and told Coleman that he could make a Proposition of some kind to him, so that, if he desired to get the road orders, he would have an opportunity to do so.

On Saturday morning before the arrest of the defendant in error, Coleman had another conversation with him, in which Goshorn, as testified to by Coleman, again renewed the proposition to take the papers from the office, and Coleman told him that he would go to the extent of placing the road orders where he (Goshorn) could get them; whereupon Goshorn requested Coleman to place them in the fourth box of a certain row of tin boxes in the record room of the clerk's office, and have them there on the following Tuesday at noon, and that he would take the papers when Chief Deputy Clerk Jarret left the clerk's office for dinner, to which Coleman agreed. On the same evening Coleman informed Staunton and Silman of what had occurred, and of Goshorn's purpose to take the papers out of the clerk's office on the following Tuesday, and Staunton and Silman told Coleman that they would make an arrangement so that Goshorn would not be able to get away with the papers. The orders in question were placed in the tin box by Coleman, in the presence of Jarret, about half past 11 o'clock on Tuesday morning, the 23d of November, 1897. About noon, almost immediately after Jarret had left the clerk's office for dinner, according to the evidence of the plaintiffs in error, Goshorn, who had been talking with the deputy sheriff, Harlis, near the side entrance to the court house, went into the record room, got the papers, and left the building. Coleman was not in the room when he got the papers, and did not give them to him. Shortly after leaving the building, Goshorn met plaintiff in error Silman, and returned to the clerk's office with him, in reference to the purchase of a lot of land; but before his return Jarret came back to the office, went into the record room, and found that the papers were gone from the box in which they had been placed. Goshorn, after examining the records with Silman for a short while, and before the examination was completed, asked Silman to excuse him, as he desired to go into the water-closet; that he left the record room, went into the middle office, and, as he started to enter the water-closet, Deputy Clerk Jarret accosted him, and said that he had missed some papers from the clerk's office; whereupon Goshorn took the papers from his pocket, and explained that they were some papers which Deputy Clerk Coleman had given him; and thereupon Silman and Jarret instructed the sheriff and his deputies, who were present, to arrest him, and he was taken into custody by them.

The testimony of the plaintiffs in error further shows that the purpose of Staunton and Jarret was to protect these road orders and other papers in the clerk's office by catching the person who had an intent to take them unlawfully and for illegal purposes, and that the purpose of Silman was to protect the vouchers on which the drafts had been issued to him; that they acted in good faith in all that they did, believed Coleman's statements, and that the time and circumstances under which defendant in error, Goshorn, took the papers corresponded with the information given to them by Coleman on the previous Saturday. Plaintiffs in error Staunton, Silman, and Jarret so testified as to their purpose and motives in what they did, and as to the information imparted to them by Coleman of Goshorn's purpose to secure the papers, his intention to destroy them, and his plan of securing them. They further testified that they believed Coleman's statements, and acted in good faith in all that they did. Coleman corroborated the statements of the plaintiffs in error, and further testified as to his interviews with Goshorn, as above mentioned. That the defendant in error never had any conversation or arrangement to get the papers or road orders with any of the plaintiffs in error except Coleman, and did not know of the fact that Coleman had communicated to his co-plaintiffs in error his (Goshorn's) purpose and plan to take the papers, nor did he know of the arrangement that had been made to entrap him, and in the entire dealing nothing occurred between Goshorn and any of the plaintiffs in error except Coleman. That Coleman did not know of the purpose to have defendant in error arrested if he took the papers, and did not know what steps would be taken to prevent Goshorn from getting away with or destroying the papers if taken.

The defendant in error, Goshorn, testified, in substance, that during the said week preceding the 23d of November, 1897, he met plaintiff in error Coleman on the street, and in conversation stated that the county court had only allowed him $1,500 for making out the land books, when it had allowed Staunton $1,800 for doing the same work, and inquired of Coleman why he had not told him of it, to which Coleman replied that he had not thought of it. Goshorn then said that he would sue the county court and expose some of its rascality. That Coleman then stated that the county court had allowed certain road orders to Peter Silman illegally, having paid some of them out of the bridge fund, and some of them were issued to persons claiming to be road surveyors when, in fact, they were not, and he (Goshorn) ought to get them and examine them. That subsequently, during the same week Coleman again spoke to him, telling him of the action of the court, and urged him to get the road orders and examine them; whereupon he (Goshorn) told him that, if he would get them and give them to him, he would examine them. That on Saturday of the same week Coleman again mentioned to him the action of the county court in respect to these road orders, and urged him to examine them, and told him that he would get them for him in order that he might make the examination. That he replied that he was going out of town, but would be back on the following Tuesday, and that if he would then get them he would examine them, and upon finding that they had been improperly allowed, he would give the facts to the press, and have them published for the information of the public. That in the last conversation, desiring to have some conveyances made, he requested Coleman to copy some deeds for him in the clerk's office, which he agreed to do. That on Tuesday morning he met Coleman on the street, went with him to the clerk's office, Coleman explaining that he had not made the copies of the deeds, but would do so that morning. On the way to the court house Coleman told him that he could get the road orders and give them to him to be examined, but that he (Goshorn) stated that he could not make the examination in the court house, and would have to take them outside, for the reason that persons in the court house would watch him and prevent him from making an examination there. That after he went to the clerk's office, and had examined the records about another matter, and while his brother, Ernest Goshorn, was present in the record room, Coleman came to him, and told him that he had placed the road orders in a file box in the record room, where he could get them, but he refused to take them to him, which he did in the presence of said ...