United States v. Riley

• Decision Date: 17 December 1895
• Citation: 74 F. 210
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. RILEY.
• Court: United States Circuit Court, District of Kentucky

74 F. 210

UNITED STATES v. RILEY.

United States Circuit Court, D. Kentucky.

December 17, 1895

William M. Smith, U.S. Atty.

A. E Wilson, Burton Vance, and C. H. Gibson, for defendant.

TAFT Circuit Judge.

I have no doubt what my duty is in this case. It is a duty which I perform with great reluctance. The evidence in the case strongly tends to show that the defendant was a party perhaps the chief party, to a conspiracy to evade a very important criminal statute of the United States,-- that which denounces the offense, in a government officer or employe, of collecting for political purposes assessments or contributions from other employes. The evidence seems to show that there was an elaborate and deliberate conspiracy for that purpose, and that the defendant was perhaps the masterhand in carrying it out, and in devising the plan by which its discovery and proof should be difficult. What would be developed in his defense of course the court cannot state. The case for the government, however, is a strong one, and in that view the court is naturally reluctant to direct a verdict on what is, under the circumstances of this case, a technical ground.

It is objected that the defendant has not been given a fair opportunity to make out a defense, because he could not know until the trial the particular persons from whom these assessments were charged to have been collected. In this case the merits of that contention have no great weight. The assessment proven here is shown to have been a general assessment, with respect to which the defendant would seem to have had full knowledge or information. But the constitution requires that an indictment shall set forth the nature and character of the offense charged with sufficient particularity to enable him to make a defense, and certain rules have been laid down by the authorities which fix what are the material averments and what are the material specifications. With respect to larceny, it is necessary to state whose property it is which the thief has taken. With respect to embezzlement, or all crimes against property, the same rule obtains. With respect to this statutory offense, it seems to me by analogy that the name of the officer or employe of the United States from whom the political assessment has been received is equally essential to the validity of the indictment. The framer of this indictment was evidently of that opinion, because he attempted to explain the omission of the names by the usual averment that the names of the storekeepers or gaugers from whom this assessment was collected or received were unknown to the grand jury. Mr. Jolly, who was district attorney at the time this indictment was found, has explained the reason why this course was taken, which was that the grand jury and he did not think that they could trace the assessments collected from any particular gauger into the particular funds received by the defendant. But it seems to me that the evidence before the grand jury, as the evidence here made a case against Riley, showing that he was unlawfully concerned in receiving all the assessments which are proven to have been here collected. If that is the case, then the proof before the grand jury that any particular gauger paid an assessment was proof of the name of a person which should have been inserted in the indictment. My theory, and it seems to me the only proper theory, of the evidence is that...