United States v. Green
| Decision Date | 26 February 1915 |
| Docket Number | 28. |
| Citation | 220 F. 973 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. GREEN et al. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania |
Robert J. Sterrett, Asst. U.S. Atty., and Francis Fisher Kane, U.S Atty., both of Philadelphia, Pa., for the United States.
Wm. T Connor and John R. K. Scott, both of Philadelphia, Pa., for defendants.
The defendants were indicted for a conspiracy to commit an offense against the laws of the United States. The offense to commit which they are charged to have conspired is that of fraudulent concealment by a bankrupt of his assets from his trustee in bankruptcy. The real question in the case is whether the offense was made out, or more particularly whether there was evidence upon which the jury were justified in finding a verdict of guilty.
The reasons for a new trial are nine in number and cover the usual wide range. The first four have been characterized as formal, in the sense that they appeal to the discretion of the trial judge. These may be disposed of with the observation that, if the evidence is sufficient in law to form the basis of a conviction, there is nothing in the case to call upon the court to nullify the declared judgment of the jury.
The succeeding five reasons are directed to complaints of trial error. The seventh reason presents the only question we consider open to discussion. In form it complains of the answer to a point presented; but, as that point asked for binding instructions to the jury to render a verdict of acquittal, it brings up the real question in the case to which we have adverted. Other trial errors complained of include rulings upon the admission of evidence and instructions given to the jury or not given as prayed for in the points submitted. The exception taken to the admission of the schedules is disposed of by the case of Ensign v Pennsylvania, 227 U.S. 592, 33 Sup.Ct. 321, 57 L.Ed. 658 The grounds of objection to this testimony are not given. The schedules would certainly be admissible under the general rules of evidence. If inadmissible, the objection must be based upon some excluding statute or exception to the general rule. The statute excluding admissions in pleading having been repealed, and the excluding provision of the Bankruptcy Act being confined to testimony given by a bankrupt under examination, no statutory ground of exclusion now exists. Our attention has not been called to any other ground of exclusion, and we are therefore unconvinced of error in the admission of this evidence.
An exception to a refusal to charge as requested in the fourth and fifth points presented by the defendants would, we think be well taken. There was no thought in the mind of the trial judge to do otherwise than affirm the proposition of law set forth in these points. It was the intention to affirm them, and we think this was done. The thought in mind was to affirm the points which were affirmed in the early part of the charge, and to reserve the answer to the fourth and fifth points as in more logical order of presentation at the close of the charge. The points were laid aside for this purpose, and were overlooked at the close of the charge. What the trial judge really had in mind in this part of the charge was not the written points as submitted, but the ruling of the court on the motion to strike out this testimony, when the intention was expressed to limit the effect of the testimony of each of the defendants as evidence against himself and not the other, unless the fact of the conspiracy had been made to appear, and the statements made were during and in pursuance of the conspiracy. The fact is the points as formal points were overlooked, and there was in consequence an omission to formally and specifically affirm them. They were none the less in substance and fact affirmed. This brings this branch of the case within the rule that, where the trial judge has in his charge instructed the jury upon the law embodied in requests for charge, he need not make specific answer to the points submitted. The seventh and eighth reasons present the real question involved. If there was evidence...
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