Streep v. United States
Decision Date | 02 December 1895 |
Docket Number | No. 623,623 |
Citation | 16 S.Ct. 244,160 U.S. 128,40 L.Ed. 365 |
Parties | STREEP v. UNITED STATES |
Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
This was an indictment in the circuit court of the United States for the Southern district of New York, on section 5480 of the Revised Statutes, as amended by the act of March 2, 1890, c. 393, and copied in the margin,1 for devising a scheme to sell counterfeit obligations and securities of the United States, by means of circulars through the post office. The indictment was found October 10, 1892, and contained two counts, one charging the offence to have been committed on May 13, and the other on May 20, 1889.
By sections 1043 and 1044 of the Revised Statutes, as amended by the act of April 13, 1876, c. 56, 'no person shall be prosecuted, tried or punished' (except for murder, or under the revenue laws or the slave-trade laws of the United States), 'unless the indictment is found, or the information is instituted, within three years next after such offence shall have been committed.' 19 Stat. 32. But, by section 1045, 'nothing in the two preceding sections shall extend to any person fleeing from justice.'
At the trial of this indictment, the United States introduced evidence tending to prove the commission of the offense at the times alleged in the indictment, and also testimony that the defendant was indicted June 20, 1889, for the same transaction, in a court of the state of New York, under the Penal Code of the state, and was arrested by the police, and gave bail upon that indictment; that on October 10, 1889, his case was called in that court, and his bail forfeited by order of the court; that the officers afterwards made unsuccessful attempts to find him; that in August, 1890, being in New York, he stated to Anthony Comstock (who was called as a witness for the government) that he went to Europe in the fall of 1889, because his counsel advised him to do so, and told him to go abroad so that they could not call him as a witness against one Bechtold, by whom the bail had been put up; that in October, 1890, he made an affidavit and testified in a prosecution in behalf of the United States against Bechtold; and that the first charge made against him, for a violation of the laws of the United States, was a complaint, charging the same offense as in this indictment, and upon which he was arrested October 2, 1891.
The defendant offered no evidence, and, at the close of the evidence for the government, moved the court to direct an acquittal because the indictment was found more than three years after the offenses alleged and given in evidence, and because the words 'fleeing from justice,' in section 1045 of the Revised Statutes, meant a fleeing from the justice of the United States, and not from the justice of any state. The motion was denied, and the defendant excepted.
The court instructed the jury that, if they found that the defendant was fleeing from justice between the times of the commission of the offenses and of the finding of the indictment, they might find him guilty, notwithstanding the indictment was found more than three years after the commission of the offenses. The further instructions of the court to the jury, together with the requests and exceptions of Mr. Hess, the defendant's counsel, and a request of Mr. Mott, the attorney for the United States, were stated in the bill of exceptions as follows:
The court also, at the request of the defendant's counsel, instructed the jury that the failure of the defendant to testify should not raise a presumption against him, and that if they had a reasonable doubt they must acquit the defendant.
The jury returned a verdict of guilty. The court sentenced the defendant to be imprisoned in a penitentiary for 18 months, and he sued out this writ of error.
C. C. Lancaster, for plaintiff in error.
Asst. Atty. Gen. Dickinson, for the United States.
Mr. Justice GRAY, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.
Only two of the questions argued in this court are presented by the exceptions taken at the trial.
One subject of exception was the refusal of the court to instruct the jury, as requested by the defendant, that they could not infer a scheme to defraud from the circulars themselves, but must be satisfied from the evidence that there was such a scheme. That instruction was rightly refused as immaterial. The court had already instructed the jury, without exception by the defendant, that they need not, under this indictment, be satisfied that there was a scheme to defraud; that the statute spoke of a scheme to defraud, and also of a scheme to sell counterfeit money; that the indictment charged a scheme to sell counterfeit money, and it was a...
To continue reading
Request your trial-
U.S. v. Owens, Criminal Action No. 95-10397-WGY.
...for subsequent unrelated federal crimes is necessarily hampered by his flight from justice."); see also Streep v. United States, 160 U.S. 128, 135, 16 S.Ct. 244, 247, 40 L.Ed. 365 (1895) (fleeing justice on state offense statute of limitations for same offense under federal law). This Court......
-
Greene v. United States
... ... are found in another state and district, and not in the ... district of their homes, under circumstances indicating a ... purpose to evade the authority and jurisdiction of the local ... courts, they might be justly considered fugitives from ... justice. Streep v. United States, 160 U.S. 128, 16 ... Sup.Ct. 244, 40 L.Ed. 365. Evidence was presented ... [154 F. 412] ... tending to prove the crimes charged in the second indictment, ... including the overt acts, and evidence was also presented ... tending to prove the embezzlement charged in the ... ...
-
Nally v. United States Gray v. United States
...the second clause by seeking to obtain money or property from his victim through false pretenses. Cf. Streep v. United States, 160 U.S. 128, 132-133, 16 S.Ct. 244, 246, 40 L.Ed. 365 (1895). Every court to consider the matter had so held.5 Yet, today, the Court, for all practical purposes, r......
-
U.S. v. Garcia-Moreno
...the intention of avoiding being prosecuted, whether a prosecution has or has not been actually begun. Streep v. United States, 160 U.S. 128, 133, 16 S.Ct. 244, 40 L.Ed. 365 (1895). More recently, the Sixth Circuit held that, in order to toll the limitations period, the Government must show ......