United States v. Robert Forrester

• Decision Date: 14 December 1908
• Docket Number: No. 287,287
• Parties: UNITED STATES, Plff. in Err., v. ROBERT FORRESTER, Benjamin N. Freeman, Otis B. Spencer, Frank Eldredge, and George C. Franklin
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

211 U.S. 399

29 S.Ct. 132

53 L.Ed. 245

UNITED STATES, Plff. in Err.,

v ROBERT FORRESTER, Benjamin N. Freeman, Otis B. Spencer, Frank Eldredge, and George C. Franklin.

No. 287.

Argued October 22, 23, 26, 1908.

Decided December 14, 1908.

Solicitor General Hoyt, Attormey General Bonaparte, and Mr. Edwin L. Lawrence for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. John M. Waldron and G. Q. Richmond for defendants in error.

Mr. Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

A demurrer having been sustained to an indictment found against the present defendants in error, this writ of error was prosecuted on behalf of the United States under the authority of the act of March 2, 1907 (34 Stat. at L. 1246, chap. 2564, U. S. Comp. Stat. Supp. 1907, p. 209).

The five persons named as defendants were accused of having at Durango, Colorado, entered into an unlawful conspiracy to defraud the United States of more than 3,500 acres of coal lands, eighteen tracts of which land were particularly described. The purpose and object of the conspiracy was averred to have been the obtaining of the title to the lands for a Colorado corporation, styled the Calumet Fuel Company, in a quantity far greater than the corporation could lawfully acquire. The lands were averred to be 'all then and there lands of the United States, chiefly valuable for the deposit of coal therein, situated within said land district, and open to entry and purchase as coal lands at the said land office, under the laws of the United States relating to the entry and sale of coal lands, and the rules and regulations then in force, which had theretofore been made under authority of said laws of the Commissioner of the General Land Office, with the approval of the Secretary of the Interior.' The means by which the lands were to be fraudulently acquired were substantially as follows: Persons qualified to enter coal lands were to be procured, who would be furnished by the conspirators or the corporation with the means to purchase such lands upon antecedent agreements that the lands, when acquired, should be conveyed as directed by the conspirators, each entryman to make the application to purchase and the final entry, and, in so doing, to make affidavit, in which, among other things, it would be falsely stated that the entryman was making the entry for his own use and benefit, and not directly or indirectly for the use or benefit of any other person, whereby the local land officers would be deceived, etc. Forty-nine separate overt acts were charged to have been done in furtherance of the conspiracy. In six of the paragraphs relating to the commission of overt acts the making of affidavits at purchase concerning six of the eighteen tracts enumerated in the body of the indictment was alleged, and the affidavits were set forth verbatim. In each affidavit, besides asserting citizenship, no previous exercise of a right to purchase, and stating the character of the lands, the applicant declared that he had expended a small sum (in one instance fifty dollars, in the others fifteen or twenty dollars) in developing a mine on the particular tract, that the applicant was in actual possession of the mine, and that the entry was made for his own use and benefit, and not indirectly for the use or benefit of any other party. The remaining overt acts concerned the borrowing of the money to make the purchases, the furnishing of the money to the entrymen to make the payments, the execution of deeds by the entrymen, the surveying of certain of the lands, an affidavit as to the distance of some of the lands from a completed railroad, etc.

Among other grounds of demurrer to the indictment was one asserting that no offense was stated therin. The demurrer was sustained' for reasons given on consideration of the first count in case No. 2022, United States v. Keitel.' The decision thus made the basis of the ruling was that reviewed in case No. 286, which we have just decided (211 U. S. 370, 53 L. ed.—,29 Sup. Ct. Rep. 123). As pointed out in the opinion in that case, the...