United States v. Sanche

• Decision Date: 22 June 1881
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Tennessee
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. SANCHE and others.

7 F. 715

UNITED STATES v. SANCHE and others.

United States Circuit Court, W.D. Tennessee.

June 22, 1881

W. W Murray, Dist. Att'y, and John B. Clough, Asst. Dist Att'y. for the United States.

Metcalf & Walker, Luke E. Wright, and W. D. Wilkerson, for defendants.

The indictment alleges that the defendants-- 'Did conspire combine, confederate, and agree together, between and among themselves, to plunder certain goods and merchandise, a more particular description of which said goods and merchandise being to the grand jurors aforesaid unknown, then and there to the steam-boat City of Vicksburg, the said steam-boat being then and there wrecked and in distress on the waters of the Mississippi river, within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States, while engaged in commerce and navigation on the said river, to-wit, between Vicksburg in the state of Mississippi, and St. Louis, in the state of Missouri; and that, to effect the object of the said conspiracy the said Hercules Sanche then and there furnished and loaned to the said John Woods and Elias Boatright a certain skiff to be used by them, the said Woods and the said Boatright, in plundering said goods and merchandise from the said steam-boat.'

The defendants moved to quash the indictment on the grounds stated in the opinion of the court.

HAMMOND D.J.

This is an indictment under Rev. St. Sec. 5440, for a conspiracy to commit the officers denounced by Rev. St. Sec. 5358, and the defendants move to quash it on two grounds. The first is that section 5440 does not make it indictable to conspire to commit a trespass against private persons or private property, although such trespass may be a violation of the criminal laws of the United States, but only punishes frauds against the government of the United States, and such offences as are aimed at it by obstructing its operations or otherwise injuring it in its property or other rights. The section reads as follows:

'If two or more persons conspire, either to commit any offence against the United States, or to defraud the United States in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such parties do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, all the parties to such conspiracy shall be liable to a penalty,' etc.

It is argued that the words 'or to defraud the United States in any manner, or for any purpose,' found in this section, indicate what is meant by 'any offence against the United States,' as used in the preceding member of the same sentence; that this whole section was originally a part of a revenue law, and has been held to be still a crime against the revenue laws, although displaced by the Revision and put under the title 'Crimes;' that as originally enacted the phrase 'to commit any offence against the laws of the United States,' has here been significantly changed; and that all the cases cited in the marginal notes to the second edition of the Revised Statutes are cases of the character designated in this objection to the indictment.

It is to be observed that the act of March 2, 1867, c. 169, is entitled 'An act to amend existing laws relating to internal revenue, and for other purposes. ' The other purposes seem to be important amendments to the criminal laws of the United States in no way especially connected with the revenue laws, that I can see, except that they are made by a single section in this act, all the other sections of which do indeed pertain to the revenue. This incongruity is not anomalous in our legislation, where most important subjects are disposed of in appropriation and other bills not at all germane to those subjects. That this section is of that character is plainly shown by another branch of it that makes an offence begun in one district and completed in another triable in either. Act March 2, 1867, c. 169, Sec. 30; 14 St. 484; Id. 471. These provisions are undoubtedly useful in the administration of the revenue laws, but they are likewise necessary in any other branch of our criminal jurisprudence; and the mere fact that they are found in a revenue law under a title like this, with the legislative habit that I have mentioned, furnishes but slight, if any, indication of an intention to limit their operation, as suggested by the argument we are considering. I think this section 30 of the act of 1867 finds its proper place in the Revised Statutes, where it has been separated and codified at sections 731 and 5440, and that it was intended originally to incorporate into our laws a statute found in England and many of the states, and which has its roots in the common...