United States v. One Reo Motor Truck

• Decision Date: 10 June 1925
• Docket Number: 1643.,No. 1642,1642
• Citation: 6 F.2d 412
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. ONE REO MOTOR TRUCK. SAME v. ONE BROCKWAY MOTOR TRUCK.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of Rhode Island

6 F.2d 412 (1925)

UNITED STATES v. ONE REO MOTOR TRUCK.

SAME v. ONE BROCKWAY MOTOR TRUCK.

Nos. 1642, 1643.

District Court, D. Rhode Island.

June 10, 1925.

Wallace R. Chandler, Jr., Asst. U. S. Atty., of Providence, R. I.

Rosenfeld & Hagen, of Providence, R. I., for defendants.

MORTON, District Judge.

These are proceedings to forfeit two automobiles under the National Prohibition Act (Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1923, § 10138¼ et seq.). In each case police officers discovered the truck in question being used for the unlawful transportation of intoxicating liquor. They held both drivers and trucks and turned them over to federal prohibition officers. Each driver was subsequently convicted in the United States court in Rhode Island. The question in each case is whether there was a lawful seizure for purposes of forfeiture under the National Prohibition Act.

As to the authority of police officers to make such seizures, Circuit Courts of Appeals have squarely differed; that of the Fifth Circuit having held that state officers might do so (U. S. v. Story, 294 F. 517), and that of the Ninth Circuit having decided to the contrary with the previous case before it (U. S. v. Loomis, 297 F. 359). In the Fourth Circuit it has been held that the Eighteenth Amendment "does not make prohibition officers of the several states, by reason of their state commissions, officers of the United States exercising federal authority." Kanellos v. U. S., 282 F. 461, 463.

A right to seize under a federal act must be found in the federal statutes. As a general rule of construction, statutes which confer upon officers powers of seizure and arrest refer only to officers of the jurisdiction which enacts the statute. If Congress had intended by the National Prohibition Act to confer upon officers appointed by the states the special powers therein granted to "the Commissioner of Internal Revenue, his assistants, inspectors, or any officers of the law" (section 26), it would naturally have said so in explicit terms, and would have defined the class of state officers to whom the act applied. In the absence of such provisions, it seems to me that they are not included. The seizures by the police appear to have been unwarranted in law. Of course, police officers, like other citizens, have the right to arrest for felonies against the United States. It is a matter of common knowledge that police departments often discover and hold counterfeiters, for instance, and the legality of their doing...