United States v. Reder
| Decision Date | 22 August 1895 |
| Citation | 69 F. 965 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. REDER. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of South Dakota |
Chauncey L. Wood, Special Asst. U.S. Atty.
W. G Porter and B. R. Wood, for defendant.
This case has been presented and defended with marked ability. I ask of you careful consideration of the law which will govern you. Ut has been claimed that the defendant is an old settler of the Black Hills, and that he is a good and valuable citizen, and he is a good and valuable citizen, and that he did not know that he was violating the law, if he did violate it. These considerations will not excuse him in a court of justice. If you should find him guilty, they may properly be urged in mitigation of the sentence, but no man is excused from violating the law because he did not know what the law was.
In this case the defendant is indicted for a violation of the laws enacted for the protection of timber on public mineral lands of the United States. There are three counts in the indictment. In the first count the defendant is charged with having unlawfully felled and removed a large amount of timber, described as 'pine trees,' being and growing on the public mineral lands of the United States, in Custer county, in this state and district. And it is further charged in the first count of said indictment that said timber was not so felled and removed by the defendant for building agricultural, mining, or domestic purposes, nor for the use of the United States navy, contrary to the statutes of the United States, and contrary to rules and regulations in pursuance thereof made by the secretary of the interior. In the second count of the indictment the defendant is charged with having unlawfully felled and removed a large number of pine trees growing and being on the public mineral lands of the United States in Custer county, in this state and district; and that timber and trees so felled and removed, and the lumber so manufactured therefrom, was sold and disposed of by the defendant to divers persons and corporations, not then and there citizens and bona fide residents of the state of South Dakota, for use outside of the state of South Dakota, other than for the use of the United States navy, contrary to the statutes of the United States in such cases made and provided, and contrary to the rules and regulations in pursuance thereof made by the secretary of the interior. In the third and last count of the indictment it is charged that the defendant unlawfully felled and removed timber, to wit, a large number of pine trees, being and growing on the public mineral lands of the United States, in Custer county, S.D., which said timber, it is charged in the third count, so felled and removed, was by the defendant sent, shipped, and exported outside of the state of South Dakota, for use other than for the United States navy, contrary to the forms and effect of the statutes of the United States, and contrary to the rules and regulations in pursuance thereof made by the secretary of the interior. It is charged in each count of the indictment that this cutting and removing was done on the 4th day of May, 1894, and the indictment was found and returned on the 19th day of August, 1895. And the court now instructs you that, if you find from the evidence that this cutting was done at any time during a period of three years next before the day of the indictment, then it falls within the allegations and charges contained in the indictment as to time. To this indictment the defendant has pleaded not guilty, thus putting in issue all of the material allegations of the indictment.
By an act of congress of June 3, 1878, a right to take timber from public mineral lands for building, agricultural, mining, or other domestic purposes is specially created in favor of certain persons named in the act. The first section in that act provides as follows:
That all citizens of the United States and other persons, bona fide residents of the state of Colorado or Nevada, or either of the territories of New Mexico, Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Dakota, Idaho, or Montana, and all other mineral districts of the United States, shall be, and are hereby, authorized and permitted to fell and remove, for building, agricultural, mining or other domestic purposes, any timber or other trees growing or being on the public lands, said lands being mineral, and not subject to entry under existing laws of the United States, except for mineral entry, in either of said states, territories or districts of which such citizens or persons may be at the time bona fide residents, subject to such rules and regulations as the secretary of the interior may prescribe for the protection of the timber and of the undergrowth growing upon such lands, and for other purposes: provided the provisions of this act shall not extend to railroad corporations.
The third section provides as follows:
Any person or persons who shall violate the provisions of this act, or any rules or regulations in pursuance thereof made by the secretary of the interior, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, etc.
From this it will be seem that it is lawful for all citizens of the United States, and other persons bona fide residents of the state of South Dakota and other states and territories named in the act, to fell and remove timber and other trees in any mineral district within this state for building, agricultural, mining, or other domestic purposes.
In this case it is alleged in the indictment and conceded by the defendant that the lands spoken of in the indictment are mineral lands of the kind mentioned in the act of congress above referred to.
Under the sanction and authority of the congress as expressed in the act in question, the secretary of the interior has made the following rules and regulations:
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