United States v. Klock

• Decision Date: 27 September 1951
• Docket Number: Cr. No. 30845.
• Citation: 100 F. Supp. 230
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. KLOCK et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of New York

100 F. Supp. 230

UNITED STATES v. KLOCK et al.

Cr. No. 30845.

United States District Court N. D. New York.

September 27, 1951.

Edmund Port, U. S. Atty. Northern District of New York, Syracuse, N. Y., (Robert J. Leamy Asst. U. S. Atty., Oneonta, N. Y., of counsel), for the United States.

Averbach & Bonney, Seneca Falls, N. Y. (Albert Averbach, Seneca Falls, N. Y., and William W. Barron, Washington, D. C., of counsel), for defendants.

FOLEY, District Judge.

The defendant Titus by proper motion seeks to dismiss sixteen substantive counts and one conspiracy count, entitled Count XVII, contained in a single indictment found against him and two other defendants, Klock and Root. The challenge by defendant Titus alone to Counts I through XVI of the indictment, inclusive, is based upon three contentions: (1) that the court is without jurisdiction; (2) the indictment does not state facts sufficient to constitute an offense against the United States; (3) the indictment was not filed within three years next after the alleged offenses were committed. The attack against the conspiracy count, Count XVII, is generally similar. In three separate motions filed simultaneously, the defendant Titus also moves for a bill of particulars, discovery and inspection, and for relief from prejudicial joinder under the appropriate rules of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, 18 U.S.C. It is evident that the motion for dismissal as to the separate counts of the indictment is the important one to resolve, but the discussion herein shall cover and is intended as a disposition of all the motions.

The sixteen counts of the indictment are similar in their accusations. Each count charges a wrongful and unlawful misapplication of the moneys, funds and credits of the Syracuse Trust Company by Klock, employed by the said bank as bookkeeper, with intent to injure and defraud said bank. The alleged method of misapplication by Klock is set forth similarly in each count in precise detail, and the payee, maker, date and amount of each check charged in the separate sixteen counts to have been drawn upon a stated account containing insufficient funds are set forth as part of the circumstances surrounding and relating to each claimed statutory violation. Each of these counts charge that the described checks were signed by Paul Titus as maker and drawn upon the account of Paul and/or Ann Titus in said bank. The dates of the incidents, alleged with sufficient particularity, run from January 1950 to March 1951 in these counts. Upon these direct charges of criminal responsibility on the part of Klock in his actions as a bank employee, a specific charge in each count is laid against the defendant Titus that in each separate instance he did unlawfully, wilfully and wrongfully and with intent to injure and defraud the bank, aid and abet Klock in his alleged wrongdoing. The criminal charge against Titus in these counts is solely and only aiding and abetting Klock. No more and no less. The violations of law, as is customary, are listed at the end of each count as violations of Section 656 and 2, Title 18 U.S.C.A.

The main contention of Titus grows from the revision of the United States criminal statutes in 1948 and is directed against the omission of certain language in the breaking down of the voluminous Section 592 of Title 12 U.S.C., 1940 Ed. and incorporating important parts of it in the new revised section 656, Title 18 U.S.C., C. 645, 62 Stat. 729, which became effective September 1, 1948. The material words not carried over into Section 656 by the revision, or to other related provisions recreated from Section 592, were specific in including therein "* * * every person who, with like intent, aids or abets any officer, director, agent, employee or receiver in any violation of this section shall be guilty of a misdemeanor * * *". Importance is attached to this omission in behalf of the defendant Titus because at the time of the legal existence of Section 592 there was the usual provision for aiding and abetting responsibility in Section 550, Title 18 U.S.C., the predecessor in part of Section 2, Title 18 U.S.C., the new general provision in such situations. It is argued that because the new section, 656, by its terms does not explain such omission, nor does such explanation exist in the Reviser's Note to such section, either as to the reason for the omission nor a reference to the provisions of aiding and abetting under Section 2 as covering the situation, then the conclusion is warranted that the Congress, and the Revisers in their important aid to the Congress, by this negative manner intended the startling consequence which would grant inviolability and immunity to persons sought to be charged as an aider and abettor to this particular statutory violation. It is a tortuous road of reasoning and, in my judgment, a simple study of the necessity, background, spirit, purpose and function of the revision in 1948 of Title 18 discloses an intent exactly opposite to the contention made in this respect. This scattering and specious argument, it appears to me, is absolutely contrary to the intent of the Congress and the expressions of the revisers in effecting generally this important revision of existing law.

As stated recently in Schwegmann Bros. v. Calvert Distillers Corp., 341 U.S. 384, 394, 71 S.Ct. 745, 750, "It is the sponsors that we look to when the meaning of the statutory words is in doubt", then again in the dissenting opinion, Mr. Justice Frankfurter, 341 U.S. at pages 399, 400, 71 S.Ct. at page 753, same case, "It has never been questioned in this Court that committee reports, as well as statements by those in charge of a bill or of a report, are authorative elucidations of the scope of a measure." Oddly enough, an important sponsor of the revision of Title 18, William W. Barron, Chief Reviser, is counsel to the attorneys of record for the defendant Titus. A scrutiny of his statements, the notes of the revisers compiled under his supervision, and his writings, is necessary. It is unquestioned that he and his associates performed a monumental task in guiding this important revision and putting into intelligible, concise form the important statutory enactments relating to crimes and criminal procedure.

In his statement to the House Committee on Revision of the Laws, at a hearing held December 6, 1944, Mr. Barron, speaking as Chief Reviser, was asked by the Chairman as to whether or not the reviser's notes would set forth clearly the substantive changes in the law. It was the answer of Mr. Barron in this respect that, "Every substantive change, no matter how minor, is fully explained so that if you in your discretion see fit to make these notes part of your report, they will adequately serve to interpret every proposed change." Title 18 U.S.C., 1948 Ed., Cong.Serv. p. 2672.

As indicated previously, the Reviser's Note to Section 656, Title 18 U.S.C., makes not the scantiest reference to the purpose in the omission of the previous aiding and abetting language. The Reviser's Note to such section does state in its second paragraph that, "The revised section without changing in any way the meaning or substance of existing law, clarifies, condenses, and combines related provisions largely rewritten in matters of style." These plain, simple statements must mean what they say. It seems incongruous that the Congress and the revisers in assisting them in its studied research would work out such drastic change of policy as urged by the defendant herein in relation...