United States v. Green

• Decision Date: 24 January 1955
• Docket Number: No. 5236.,5236.
• Citation: 135 F. Supp. 162
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Jack GREEN and General Laborers' Local No. 397 of Granite City, Illinois, a Labor Union and Voluntary Association of Workingmen Affiliated with International Hod Carriers Building and Common Laborers Union of America.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of Illinois

135 F. Supp. 162

UNITED STATES of America v. Jack GREEN and General Laborers' Local No. 397 of Granite City, Illinois, a Labor Union and Voluntary Association of Workingmen Affiliated with International Hod Carriers Building and Common Laborers Union of America.

No. 5236.

United States District Court S. D. Illinois, S. D.

January 24, 1955.

John B. Stoddart, Jr., U. S. Atty., Marks Alexander, Robert Oxtoby, Asst. U. S. Attys., for the United States.

A. M. Fitzgerald, Springfield, Ill., Schaefer O'Neill, Alton, Ill., for defendants.

ADAIR, District Judge.

The Defendant Jack Green and the Labor Union Local No. 397 were found guilty by a jury of violating the Federal Anti-Racketeering Act. After the trial, motions for judgment of acquittal, new trial, and in arrest of judgment were duly filed and argued. The motions for judgment of acquittal and for new trial are denied, but the Court is of the opinion that the motion in arrest of judgment should be allowed for the following reasons:

1. That the Court is without jurisdiction of the offense because the facts alleged in the Indictment fail to set forth an offense against the United States such as to give this Court jurisdiction.

2. A proper construction of the Anti-Racketeering Act clearly indicates that it does not cover the type of activity charged in the Indictment, and to interpret the act in question as covering the type of activity charged in the Indictment is to extend the jurisdiction of the Court, and the power of Congress beyond their Constitutional limits.

The main difficulty that I find with this proceeding is the charge of the Indictment, and in this connection I am concerned only with Counts One and Two, under which the jury determined each of the Defendants were guilty. The pertinent provisions of the Indictment are as follows:

"the Defendants did * * * obstruct, delay and affect and attempt to obstruct, delay, and affect * * * interstate commerce * * * by extortion * * * by attempting to obtain from Arthur W. Terry, Jr., * * * his money in the form of wages to be paid for imposed, unwanted, superfluous, and fictitious services of laborers * * *, the attempted obtaining of said money * * * being then intended to be accomplished and accomplished with the consent of said Arthur W. Terry, Jr., * * * by the wrongful use * * * of actual and threatened force, violence and fear * * *."

The statute in question is Section 1951 of Title 18, U.S.C., commonly referred to as the Hobbs Act, or the Anti-Racketeering Act. Before arriving at my decision, I made a personal investigation as to the intent of Congress in the passage of this Act. This statute was originally passed in 1934, and there have been surprisingly few decisions construing this statute since its original passage.

The original Act specifically excepted the activity of the use of threats or force to obtain the payment of wages by a bona fide employer to a bona fide employee. In United States v. Local 807, 1942, 315 U.S. 521, 62 S.Ct. 642, 86 L.Ed. 1004, the Supreme Court analyzed this exception in considerable detail, and held that the statute did not apply where a person had used threats of force or other violent means to either achieve the status of an employee for a member of his Union, or to secure wages for services. When the Hobbs Act was amended in 1946, no exception was made for cases where the property involved should be money demanded to be paid in the form of wages in the definition of extortion. Nevertheless, the Anti-Racketeering Act specifically provides that it is not to be construed to repeal, modify or affect the provisions of the Norris-LaGuardia Act, 29 U.S.C.A. §§...