United States v. Buskey
| Decision Date | 25 January 1889 |
| Citation | 38 F. 99 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. BUSKEY. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
J Catlett Gibson, U.S. Dist. Atty., and James Lyons, Asst. U.S Dist. atty.
R. C Marshall, for defendant.
The defendant is under several indictments in this court for having as an officer of the Norfolk National Bank embezzled abstracted, and misapplied moneys, funds, and credits of the bank, and for other offenses. Motion is made by counsel to postpone the trial of the indictments on the ground that, before he was indicted here, prosecutions had been commenced in the corporation court of Norfolk for the same acts with which he is charged here, and should not be interfered with by this court. The penal section of the national banking act (5209 of the Revised Statutes) declares that if an officer of a national bank abstracts, embezzles, or misapplies the moneys, funds, or credits of the bank, he shall be punished by imprisonment. And the judiciary act in the section defining the jurisdiction of the circuit courts of the United States, which it does in terms that have been repeated in every act from 1789 to August 13, 1888, declares that this jurisdiction shall be exclusive in the trial of all crimes or offenses against the laws of the United States, except where it is otherwise provided. Section 5209, relating to frauds upon national banks, does not 'provide otherwise.' So that the trial of officers of national banks who are charged with abstracting, embezzling, or misapplying moneys, funds, or credits of those banks is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the United States, and, being exclusively so, the trial cannot proceed in other courts. Indeed, the general rule is, whether the prosecution be for frauds upon national banks or not, that where a penal federal statute defines the person and the act which bring any case within the exclusive cognizance of the federal court, then that court has exclusive jurisdiction; but where the person commits some other act than the one defined, or where the act is committed by some other person than the one defined, then, in either case, the trial of the indictment must or may proceed in another court.
The rule is well illustrated in respect to frauds upon national banks by two decisions of the supreme court of Massachusetts. In the case of Com. v. Felton, 101 Mass. 204, an indictment had been prosecuted in the court below, charging Martin, an officer of a national bank, with embezzlement of its funds, and Felton with aiding and abetting the embezzlement. In its original form, section 5209 of the Revised Statutes did not make aiding and abetting an embezzlement of the funds of a national bank a crime against the United States. Pleas had been entered by each defendant to the...
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