United States v. Ruckman, Crim. No. 8442.

• Court: U.S. District Court — Southern District of West Virginia
• Writing for the Court: HARRY E. WATKINS
• Citation: United States v. Ruckman, 169 F.Supp. 160 (S.D. W.Va. 1959)
• Decision Date: 05 January 1959
• Docket Number: Crim. No. 8442.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America v. Charles Richard RUCKMAN, Donald Walter Patterson, and Arthur Branam.

169 F. Supp. 160

UNITED STATES of America v. Charles Richard RUCKMAN, Donald Walter Patterson, and Arthur Branam.

Crim. No. 8442.

United States District Court S. D. West Virginia, at Huntington.

January 5, 1959.

Duncan W. Daugherty, U. S. Atty., and Frank Eaton, Asst. U. S. Atty., Huntington, W. Va., for plaintiff.

Philip A. Baer, Ferguson, Baer & Ferguson, Huntington, W. Va., for defendants.

HARRY E. WATKINS, District Judge.

The three defendants were indicted at the October, 1958, term of this Court, for a violation of 18 U.S.C.A. § 1791, which reads:

"§ 1791. Traffic in contraband articles

"Whoever, contrary to any rule or regulation promulgated by the Attorney General, introduces or attempts to introduce into or upon the grounds of any Federal penal or correctional institution or takes or attempts to take or send therefrom any thing whatsoever, shall be imprisoned not more than ten years."

The indictment sets forth the charges in this case in the general language of the statute, in what defendants' brief denominates the "charging part" of the indictment, and then the indictment supplements those conclusions of law with a recitation of alleged facts pertaining to the time, place, method and plan involved in the offense. Defendants have filed a motion to dismiss the indictment, urging first that it fails to state an offense against the United States and particularly does not show a violation of § 1791, and secondly that § 1791 is unconstitutional.

Taking the points raised in the motion seriatim, I find no merit in defendants' contention that no offense is alleged here. The indictment charges in effect that 3¼ hours after his discharge from the Federal Prison Camp, Mill Point, West Virginia, defendant Ruckman delivered, pursuant to a prearranged plan, to defendants Patterson and Branam, who were inmates and prisoners of the prison, certain contraband articles of food and drink, and that the delivery took place on a public highway about one-half mile outside the prison entrance. Alleging that the contraband articles were forbidden to be introduced into the prison, the indictment charges that these defendants "did attempt to introduce into and upon the grounds of the said Federal Prison Camp * * *" these items of food and drink (emphasis added.) Defendants' brief tries to cast doubt upon these allegations by suggesting that perhaps the two inmates were escaping, or were free to roam the public highway, or that the alleged "plan" must have called for delivery of the contraband items outside the camp, so that the indictment does not charge a violation of § 1791. But those matters go to the proof in the case, and cannot be presumed to be true on this motion. If this were an indictment for introducing, rather than attempting to introduce, these items into the institution, defendants' contentions in this respect would be more in order. I conclude that the indictment clearly alleges a violation of § 1791, and the facts alleged are not inconsistent with the language of the statute used in the "charging part" of the indictment.

With respect to the constitutionality of § 1791, defendants aver that this statute is an unlawful delegation of legislative power to the executive branch of the Government, in violation of the due process clause of the United States Constitution, Amend. 5. The crux of defendants' argument is that this statute leaves to the Attorney General, rather than Congress, the determination of what constitutes an offense. Defendants recognize, in their brief, that there are many powers which the legislative branch of our Government can properly delegate to executive or administrative officers, but they urge that in such cases nothing can be left to the judgment of the delegate.

No case has been found where the constitutionality of § 1791 has heretofore been challenged, although the statute has been in effect in its present form since 1948, and a similar statute preceded it since 1930. Reading the statute alone, the general policy behind it is obvious. Congress has determined it necessary to make it an offense against the United States to engage in the traffic of contraband articles into or out of Federal penal institutions. However, Congress further saw fit to allow the Attorney General, who has control of Federal prisons and correctional institutions, to make such rules and regulations as he thinks proper, determining what, if anything, may be introduced into or sent from such prisons. In other words, Congress laid down the broad policy which prohibits the attempt to introduce any thing into prisons, and then authorized the executive officer in charge of prisons to exercise a certain amount of discretion within the limits of that policy.

The criterion to be applied in testing the constitutionality of a delegation of power by Congress has been variously stated in numerous Supreme Court decisions involving similar statutes. The Government here points to the case of United States v. Grimaud, 1910, 220 U.S. 506, 31 S.Ct. 480, 55 L.Ed. 563, involving an Act of Congress delegating to the Secretary of Agriculture the right to make rules and regulations, the violation of which was made a crime against the United States, concerning occupancy and use, such as grazing, of public forests and forest reservations. The Court held this was not an unwarranted delegation of legislative power, with the following comments which are apropos here:

"In the nature of

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