United States v. Naughten

• Decision Date: 09 June 1961
• Docket Number: Cr. No. 12990.
• Citation: 195 F. Supp. 157
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Hugh Kyle NAUGHTEN, Ronald Glenn Miller and Harlan Vale Voshell, Defendants.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California

195 F. Supp. 157

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Hugh Kyle NAUGHTEN, Ronald Glenn Miller and Harlan Vale Voshell, Defendants.

Cr. No. 12990.

United States District Court N. D. California, N. D.

June 9, 1961.

Laurence E. Dayton, U. S. Atty., San Francisco, Cal., for plaintiff.

Lambert & Lemmon and James W. Winchell, Sacramento, Cal., for defendants.

HALBERT, District Judge.

Presently before the Court is defendants' motion to dismiss Count III of the indictment on file in this case.

Count III of the indictment seeks, under the provisions of Title 50 U.S.C.A. Appendix § 462, to charge defendants with unlawfully and knowingly possessing "Selective Service System Registration Certificates, SSS Form 2, and Notice of Classification, SSS Form 110, purporting to be issued pursuant to the Selective Service Act of 1948 and the Rules and Regulations promulgated thereunder, knowing said forms to be falsely made, reproduced, counterfeited or altered." Defendants contend that there was not sufficient legal cause to justify the Grand Jury in indicting them for a violation of § 462, supra.

By appropriate proceedings, it is established that the precise forms upon which the Government will rely (in connection with Count III of the indictment) were blank. Such items as the names and addresses of registrants had not been filled in on the forms. Defendants contend that such blank forms are not "certificates" and that they do not "purport to be issued." Defendants' position is sound.

A "certificate" is "a writing giving assurance that a thing has or has not been done, that a fact exists or does not exist" (Cincinnati, N. O. & T. P. Ry. Co. v. Fidelity & Deposit Co., 6 Cir., 296 F. 298, 301). A certificate has also been defined as "a written testimony to the truth of any fact; a written declaration legally authenticated" (Dolan v. United States, 8 Cir., 133 F. 440, 449). An unauthenticated, unsigned statement is not a certificate (See: Merrell v. Tice, 104 U.S. 557, 26 L.Ed. 854).

It is obvious that Congress appreciates the difference between a "certificate" and a "blank form of a certificate," since Title 18 U.S.C. § 2197 prohibits the possession of certain "certificates" by one not lawfully entitled to such possession, or the possession of an altered, forged or counterfeit "certificate", or the possession of, with intent unlawfully to use, "any blank form of such certificate." The latter phrase would be mere surplusage if a blank form were comprehended under the word "certificate." The use of such surplusage is not ordinarily to be attributed to Congress.

Again, Title 18 U.S.C. § 1426(f) prohibits one from possessing, without lawful authority, a blank certificate of naturalization or citizenship, with intent unlawfully to use the same. Title 18 U.S.C. § 1425(b) prohibits one from obtaining for a person not entitled thereto any certificate or evidence of naturalization or citizenship. It is of pointed significance here that Congress felt the necessity of a specific prohibition of the possession of blank certificates in § 1426(f), supra.

None of the forms in question purport to "be a certificate issued pursuant to this title, or rules and regulations promulgated...