United States v. Hall

• Decision Date: 01 October 1878
• Citation: 98 U.S. 343,25 L.Ed. 180
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. HALL
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

98 U.S. 343

25 L.Ed. 180

UNITED STATES v. HALL.

October Term, 1878

CERTIFICATE of division in opinion between the judges of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of Ohio.

The facts are stated in the opinion of the court.

Mr. Assistant Attorney-General Smith for the United States.

Mr. P. C. Smith, contra.

MR. JUSTICE CLIFFORD delivered the opinion of the court.

Pensions granted to children under sixteen years of age may, in certain cases, be paid to their guardians, and the act of Congress provides that every guardian having the charge and custody of the pension of his ward, who embezzles the same in violation of his trust, or fraudulently converts the same to his own use, shall be punished by fine not exceeding $2,000, or imprisonment at hard labor for a term not exceeding five years, or both. Rev. Stat., sect. 4783.

Sufficient appears to show that the defendant in the indictment is the guardian of William Williamson, who was at the time mentioned, and long before had been, entitled to a pension from the government of the United States, and that the defendant, as such guardian, had collected pension-money belonging to his said ward as such pensioner, to the amount of $500, for which he had never accounted, and which he had never expended for nor paid to his said ward.

Payment of the money being refused and withheld, an indictment against the defendant was returned by the grand jury of the Circuit Court, in which it is charged, among other things, that he, the respondent, being then and there the duly appointed guardian of William Williamson, who was entitled to a pension from the government of the United States, and having then and there, as such guardian, the charge and custody of the pension-money belonging to said ward, did unlawfully and feloniously embezzle, in violation of his trust, a large sum of money, to wit, $500, pension-money belonging to his said ward, which he, the defendant, as such guardian, had theretofore collected from the government of the United States.

Due appearance was entered by the defendant, and he demurred to the indictment. Hearing was had; and the following questions arose, upon which the judges of the Circuit Court were opposed in opinion, and the same were duly certified to this court:——

1. Whether the Circuit Court has any jurisdiction over the alleged offence, or any power to punish the defendant for any appropriation of the money after its legal payment to him as such guardian, it appearing that the defendant is the legal guardian of his ward under the laws of the State; and that the money alleged to have been embezzled and fraudulently converted to his own use had been paid over to him by the government, and belonged to his said ward.

2. If the defendant did embezzle the money and convert the same to his own use after it was paid over to him by the government, is he liable to indictment for the offence under the act of Congress, or only under the State law?

3. Is the act of Congress under which the indictment is found a constitutional and valid law?

Preliminary to the examination of the questions certified into this court for decision, it is proper to remark that the court, in reproducing the questions exhibited in the transcript, has not preserved the exact phraseology in which they appear to have been framed, but it is believed that the form here adopted is, in substance and legal effect, the same as the questions certified from the court below. They present only two questions for decision which it is important to answer in any formal manner: —

1. Whether the offence defined by the act of Congress is committed when the embezzlement and conversion charged in the indictment did not take place until the pension-money was paid over by the government to the defendant, as guardian of the ward.

2. Whether the act of Congress defining the offence charged in the indictment is a valid law, passed in pursuance of the Constitution.

Attempt is made, undoubtedly, to raise a third question, as before explained; but it is so obvious that the act of Congress would be invalid if it defined an offence as punishable in the courts of the United States which is justiceable only in the courts of the State, that it is not deemed necessary to give the question much consideration, it being clear that if the offence charged in the indictment is punishable only by the State law, then the defendant must prevail upon one or the other, or both of the other two questions. Reasonable doubt upon that proposition cannot arise, and it is equally clear that if the answers to the first and third questions certified are adverse to the theory of the defendant, then the answer to the second question must be in the negative, which is all that need be said upon the subject.

Circuit courts have exclusive cognizance of all crimes and offences cognizable under the authority of the United States, except where the acts of Congress otherwise provide, and concurrent jurisdiction with the district courts of the crimes and offences cognizable in those courts. 1 Stat. 79; Rev. Stat., sect. 629, p. 112.

Such courts possess no jurisdiction over crimes and offences committed against the authority of the United States, except what is given to them by the power that created them; nor can they be invested with any such jurisdiction beyond what the power ceded to the United States by the Constitution authorizes Congress to confer,—from which it follows that before an offence can become cognizable in the Circuit Court the Congress must first define or recognize it as such, and affix a punishment to it, and confer jurisdiction upon some court to try the offender. United States v. Hudson, 7 Cranch, 32; United States v. Coolidge, 1 Wheat. 415; 1 Am. Cr. L., sect. 163.

Courts of the kind were not created by the Constitution, nor does the Constitution invest them with any criminal jurisdiction. Even the powers of an express character given to Congress upon the subject embrace only a limited class of wellknown offences. Congress may provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, and may pass laws to define and punish piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, and offences against the law of nations. Treason is defined by the Constitution, but it has never been decided that the offender could be tried and punished for the offence until some court is vested with the power by an act of Congress.

Implied power in Congress to pass laws to define and punish offences is also derived from the constitutional grant to Congress to declare war, to raise and support armies, to provide and maintain a navy, and to make rules for the land and naval forces, and to provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining the militia and for governing such parts of them as may be employed in the public service. Like implied authority is also vested in Congress from the power conferred to exercise exclusive jurisdiction over places purchased by the consent of the legislature of the State in which the same shall be, for the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards, and other needful buildings, and from the clause empowering Congress to pass all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by the Constitution in the government of the United States, or any department or officer thereof.

Power to grant pensions is not controverted, nor can it well be, as it was exercised by the States and by the Continental Congress during the war of the Revolution; and the exercise of the power is coeval with the organization of the government under the present Constitution, and has been continued without interruption or question to the present time.

Five days after the act passed organizing the judicial system of the United States, Congress enacted that the military pensions which have been granted and paid by the States respectively, in pursuance of an act of the United States in Congress assembled, shall be continued and paid by the United States from the fourth day of March last for the space of one year, under such regulation as the President may direct. 1 Stat. 95.

Before that provision expired, to wit, on the 5th of July of the next year, Congress enacted that military pensions granted and paid by the States in pursuance of former acts of Congress or of acts passed in the then present session, to invalids who were wounded or disabled during the late war, shall be continued and paid by the United States for one year from the 4th of March preceding the approval of the act. Id. 129.

Seven years' half-pay of certain deceased officers was granted to their widows or orphans, which grant it was supposed was barred by a subsequent resolution; and the Congress, on the 23d of March, 1792, passed an act that the right to prosecute the claims should be extended for and during the term of two years from the passing of the act giving the extension, and made further provision for placing other officers, commissioned and non-commissioned, and soldiers and seamen disabled in actual military service during the late war, on the pension list during life or the continuance of such disability. Id. 244.

Reference is made to these early acts of Congress in order to show that the pension system of the country had its origin in the Revolution, and beyond all question was sanctioned by the framers of the Constitution who were members of the first Congress, and enacted the laws for putting the new government into operation.

Other acts of Congress of a like character were passed granting pensions to the officers and soldiers disabled in the war of 1812, and in the Mexican war, and in the more recent war of the rebellion. Fresh as these laws are in the memory of every one, it is not necessary to refer to the volumes where they are found, as the public statutes of the United States are full of such...