United States v. Robinson

• Decision Date: 11 June 1920
• Docket Number: 2158-2161,2165.,2164
• Citation: 266 F. 240
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. ROBINSON et al. and five other cases.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Oklahoma

266 F. 240

UNITED STATES v. ROBINSON et al. and five other cases.

Nos. 2158-2161, 2164, 2165.

United States District Court, W.D. Oklahoma.

June 11, 1920

Wilson Tomerlin & Threlkeld, of Oklahoma City, Okl., for defendants Dietz and Morris.

P. C Simons, of Enid, Okl., and Keaton, Wells & Johnston, of Oklahoma City, Okl., for defendants Alton and Smallwood.

Pierce & McClelland and E. E. Blake, all of Oklahoma City, Okl., for defendants Halsell and Crahan.

Cottinham & Hayes, of Oklahoma City, Okl., for defendants Thomas and Rucks.

Keaton Wells & Johnston, of Oklahoma City, Okl., for defendants Van Cleef, Cooter, and Farnam.

POLLOCK District Judge.

The above entitled and numbered cases are each and all prosecutions by the government under the amendment of October 22, 1919, known as the Food Control and the District of Columbia Rents Act (chapter 80, 41 Stat. 297). To the indictments defendants, each and all, have demurred on similar grounds. These demurrers have been presented in oral argument, and now stand submitted for decision on voluminous briefs of counsel for respective parties. As the indictments and the demurrers thereto are so like or similar in nature language, form, and legal intendment as to present in each case the same legal controversies, they may well be, and will be, ruled by this one memorandum.

The charge made against defendants, briefly stated, is that of a conspiracy to sell a named necessary food product at an excessive price. While in each case but one offense is charged, many overt acts are alleged to have been done in furtherance of the purpose of the illegal confederacy. The act charged to have been violated by defendants is of course a war measure, the force and effect of which will end and the act itself sink into desuetude when, if ever, the late war between this nation and the Central Powers of Europe shall have been formally declared at an end. In the course of this memorandum the fact that such formal declaration required to end the war in theory had not been made at the date the law was enacted, therefore at said time the fact this country still remained at war, will be conceded.

Again, the complete, absolute, and plenary power of Congress to enact any and all legislation by it deemed appropriate or necessary in time of actually existing warfare between this country and another or others to preserve its national life is also conceded. Hence the question here presented concerns itself more with the sufficiency of the facts pleaded in the foregoing indictments to charge against defendants a public offense under the settled principles and forms of criminal pleading than as to the constitutional right and power of the Congress to legislate on the subject of food control in the exercise of the war powers by Congress, to protect the country and feed and maintain its armies in time of war. Viewed in this light, it is evident the language of the act itself must be first considered in connection with the charging part of the several indictments in a determination of the question presented.

The language of the act under which the indictments in these cases are found reads:

'It is hereby made unlawful for any person willfully to destroy any necessaries for the purpose of enhancing the price or restricting the supply thereof; knowingly to commit waste or willfully to permit preventable deterioration of any necessaries in or in connection with their production, manufacture, or distribution; to hoard, as defined in section 6 of this act, any necessaries; to monopolize or attempt to monopolize, either locally or generally, any necessaries; to engage in any discriminatory and unfair, or any deceptive or wasteful practice or device, or to make any unjust or unreasonable rate or charge in handling or dealing in or with any necessaries; to conspire, combine, agree, or arrange with any other person (a) to limit the facilities for transporting, producing, harvesting, manufacturing, supplying, storing, or dealing in any necessaries; (b) to restrict the supply of any necessaries; (c) to restrict distribution of any necessaries; (d) to prevent, limit, or lessen the manufacture or production of any necessaries in order to enhance the price thereof; or (e) to exact excessive prices for any necessaries, or to aid or abet the doing of any act made unlawful by this section. Any person violating any of the provisions of this section upon conviction thereof shall be fined not exceeding $5,000 or be imprisoned for not more than two years, or both: Provided, that this section shall not apply to any farmer, gardener, horticulturist, vineyardist, planter, ranchman, dairyman, stockman, or other agriculturist, with respect to the farm products produced or raised upon land owned, leased, or cultivated by him: Provided further, that nothing in this act shall be construed to forbid or make unlawful collective bargaining by any cooperative association or other association of farmers, dairymen, gardeners, or other producers of farm products with respect to the farm products produced or raised by its members upon land owned, leased, or cultivated by them. ' Section 2.

The charging part of the indictment in case No. 2158 (identical or similar in all of the other cases) reads:

'Defendants, then and there being, did then and there willfully, unlawfully, knowingly, and feloniously conspire, combine, agree, and arrange with each other, and with divers other persons to the grand jurors unknown, to commit an offense against the United States of America; that is to say, that each and all the aforementioned defendants unlawfully, willfully, knowingly, and feloniously did conspire, combine, agree, and arrange with each other, and with divers other persons to the grand jurors unknown, that they should and would, as the managing and active officers of Carroll, Brough & Robinson, a corporation, and as individuals, purchase and cause to be purchased large quantities of sugar, which commodity is a food used for consumption and is a necessary, from the Great Western Sugar Company, of Denver, Colorado, the Alton Mercantile Company, of Enid, Oklahoma, and the California & Hawaiian Sugar Refining Company, of San Francisco, California, and divers other sugar refineries, and divers wholesale dealers in sugar and brokers, whose names are to the grand jurors unknown, and that they should and would, when said sugar was so purchased by Carroll, Brough & Robinson, a corporation, by and through the said defendants, as the active officers in charge thereof, then and there unlawfully, willfully, knowingly, and feloniously demand, exact, and receive, and cause Carroll, Brough & Robinson, a corporation, to willfully, unlawfully, and knowingly, and feloniously exact, demand, and receive, excessive prices therefor from the retail grocers, merchants, and dealers in sugar in the state of Oklahoma, and other territories to the grand jurors unknown.'

From the above quotations from the amendment of the act under which these prosecutions are instituted, and from the language employed by the pleader in the indictment, it is seen the charge as presented is in the exact language of the clause of section 4 of the act as amended. The question first presented by the demurrers to the several indictments, is this:

Conceding war to have actually or theoretically existed at the date this amendment took effect (October 22, 1919), and further conceding to Congress the fullest and most absolute plenary exercise of legislative power at the date this enactment took effect to provide for the safety of the nation and the maintenance of its armies then engaged in war, through the preservation and control of necessary and essential food products of the country, and further conceding the right of the Congress to create just such exceptions and exemptions from the operation of the act which are found written therein, the questions remain: Does an indictment charging, as these do, the defendants, in the language of the statute, state a public offense under the settled principles of the law of criminal pleading and practice in this country essential to be observed in any orderly enforcement of the laws of our land, and having a reasonably decent regard for the safety of the individual citizen against oppression, which is, or should be, the supreme law of our land? (2) If so, is it within the constitutional power of the Congress to carve out and create a new criminal offense in language so broad, comprehensive, indefinite, general and uncertain of meaning as is clause (e) of the amendment above quoted? If both of these questions be answered in the affirmative (and they will be considered together), it is obvious the indictments presented must be held impregnable to the challenge made by the demurrers; otherwise, not.

A glance at the language employed by the pleader in drafting the indictments is sufficient to show it was his thought the language employed by the Congress in the act is sufficiently definite and certain to charge the commission of a public offense, and this for the reason the language found in the charging part of the indictments is identical with that found in the act itself. Hence the question first presented is this: Conceding the constitutional validity of the act in creating in clause (e) a new criminal offense, if sufficient issuable facts be pleaded to bring the defendants within the prohibition of the act, yet is an indictment drawn under said clause in the language therein employed sufficiently definite and certain to state a public offense?

In the consideration of this question it must be borne in mind the charge here presented is one of criminal conspiracy to violate the provisions of said clause (e). If this criminal conspiracy be that...