United States v. Houghton

• Decision Date: 20 October 1882
• Citation: 14 F. 544
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. HOUGHTON.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey

14 F. 544

UNITED STATES v. HOUGHTON.

United States District Court, D. New Jersey.

October 20, 1882

NIXON D.J., (charging jury.)

While the counsel of the respective parties have been engaged with so much zeal, labor, and ability in discussing before you the facts of this case, I have taken occasion to make note of certain suggestions in regard to the law, which I will now submit to you, after which the entire responsibility of its decision must rest with you.

The case lies within a narrow compass-- much narrower than one would suppose when he considers the wide range which the testimony has taken.

Section 5418 of the Revised Statutes of the United States enacts 'that every person who * * * transmits to or presents at the office of any officer of the United States any false forged, altered, or counterfeited bid, proposal, guaranty official bond, public record, affidavit, or other writing knowing the same to be false, forged, altered, or counterfeited, for the purpose of defrauding the United States,' shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and punished.

The defendant is the collector of customs for the district of Perth Amboy, and is charged in the indictment with transmitting to and presenting at the office of the secretary of the treasury a false, forged, and counterfeited writing to-wit, 'a time and pay roll of persons employed in the collection of the revenue from customs in the district of Perth Amboy, from September 1 to September 30, 1879, containing a certain affidavit, purporting to have been taken by nine several boatmen, therein mentioned, before one J. Kearney Smith, he (the collector) then and there knowing the same to be false, forged and counterfeited, for the purpose of defrauding the United States, by causing the false, forged, and counterfeited time and pay roll to be accepted and received by the secretary of the treasury as a good and sufficient voucher for the several sums therein mentioned, and causing the said sums to be allowed and credited to him on the settlement of his accounts as collector, respecting the disbursement of moneys intrusted to him for the disbursement in payment of boatmen employed by him as such collector. Before the United States can properly ask for a conviction of the defendant, you must be satisfied by the evidence, beyond a reasonable doubt, (1) that the time and pay roll described in the indictment was a false, forged, and counterfeited writing; (2) that the same was transmitted to the proper officer of the government by the defendant; and (3) that the false character of the writing was known by the defendant at the time of the sending, and that it was sent with the intent to defraud the United States.

The first and second of these propositions have not been seriously contested, and the case turns upon the last, to-wit, the knowledge of the defendant as to the true character of the writing, and his intent to defraud the government. The responsibility of deciding the case is on you. It is the duty of the court to instruct you as to the law, but you must determine the facts, and your verdict must be based upon your honest judgment of the facts. You will remember, at the outset, that the defendant can only be convicted, if at all, upon the time and pay roll of the month of September, 1879. The indictment charges that one only to be false and fraudulent, whatever may be the proof in regard to others. The other pay-rolls were either brought into the case by the defendant to show the methods by which the business of the collector's office was conducted, or were admitted by the court, at the instance of the prosecution, as tending to aid the jury in reaching a correct conclusion on the single question of the knowledge of the defendant of the true character of the one on which the indictment is founded.

The laws of the United States permit a person indicted for a crime or misdemeanor to be sworn in his own behalf. The defendant in this case has been placed upon the witness stand, and it is your duty to give such weight to his testimony as you think, under all the circumstances, it is fairly entitled to. He substantially admits the false and forged character of the pay-rolls for the boat service, and especially the one for the month of September, 1879, and it may be said that he acknowledges that he transmitted the same to the proper officer in Washington. His statement is that he certified to the correctness of all of them, and that sometimes he forwarded them himself, and sometimes they were handed back to the deputy collector to be transmitted. But he was chargeable, as collector, with the performance of the act, and in law it is the same whether he sends it personally or through his deputy.

The only questions left are in regard to the knowledge of the defendant of the falsity and forgery of the pay-roll, and the intent for which it was sent.

1. In regard to his knowledge. Did he know, at the time of his certification of its truth and its transmission, that it was untrue, and false and fraudulent? What is...