United States v. Taylor
| Decision Date | 18 August 1893 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. TAYLOR. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit |
F. R Lassiter, U.S. Dist. Atty.
James Lyons, for defendants.
This is one of several indictments found against Robert Taylor and sundry other persons. The indictments charge the defendants named in them with unlawfully interfering with the election for a congressman of the United States, which was held on the 8th day of November, 1892, at the second precinct of Jackson ward, in the city of Richmond. It sets out that Clinton De Priest was United States supervisor of that election at that precinct, and that De Priest called to his support three United States deputy marshals to prevent himself from arrest and ejection from the polls, viz. George M. Travers, E. N Rowe, and L. M. O'Brien. It charges that the accused hindered, interfered with, and obstructed, assaulted, and prevented the said De Priest, supervisor, and Travers, Rowe and O'Brien, deputy marshals, in the lawful discharge of their duties under the laws of the United States at said election at said precinct, and prevented their free attendance and presence at the polls of election, and their full and free access to and egress from the polls, and violently ejected them from the said polls of election, and caused them to be removed from the said polls, and to be carried to and incarcerated in the city jail of the city of Richmond, without any legal authority or process whatever other than a pretended warrant of arrest issued by said Robert Taylor, one of the defendants, contrary to the law of the United States, and against the peace and dignity of the United States.
The place of the holding of the United States circuit court for the eastern district of Virginia, by the grand jury of which the indictments were found, is not given. The term or time at which the court was held is not stated, and cannot be gathered from the indictments. The concluding charge of the indictment, embraced in the phrase, 'contrary to the law of the United States, and against the peace and dignity of the United States,' refers, textually and grammatically, only to the warrant of arrest, which it charges to have been issued by said Robert Taylor. A very forced construction of the language of the conclusion of the indictment is necessary to apply this essential charge to the allegations of violence at the polls, which is the real gravamen of the indictments.
It is useless, in the cases at bar, to consider the effect of these irregularities upon the validity of the indictments. There is a further omission in these instruments, which is of graver moment. It is hornbook law that in...
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