United States v. William Mason

• Decision Date: 05 April 1909
• Docket Number: No. 642,642
• Citation: 29 S.Ct. 480,213 U.S. 115,53 L.Ed. 725
• Parties: UNITED STATES, Plff. in Err., v. WILLIAM R. MASON and Joseph Vanderweide
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

213 U.S. 115

29 S.Ct. 480

53 L.Ed. 725

UNITED STATES, Plff. in Err.,

v WILLIAM R. MASON and Joseph Vanderweide.

No. 642.

Argued March 5, 1909.

Decided April 5, 1909.

Assistant Attorney General Fowler for plaintiff in error.

[Argument of Counsel from page 116 intentionally omitted] Messrs. John M. Waldron, Reese McCloskey, and N. W. Dixon for defendants in error.

[Argument of Counsel from page 117 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Harlan delivered the opinion of the court:

This is a criminal prosecution under §§ 5508 and 5509 of the Revised Statutes (U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 3712). The substantial provisions of each of those sections were reproduced from the act of May 31st, 1870, chap. 114, 16 Stat. at L. 140, passed for the purpose of enforcing the right of citizens to vote in the several states, and for other purposes.

Those sections are as follows: '§ 5508. If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any citizen in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or if two or more persons go in disguise on the highway or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured, they shall be fined not more than five thousand dollars and imprisoned not more than ten years, and shall, moreover, be thereafter ineligible to any office or place of honor, profit, or trust created by the Constitution or laws of the United States. § 5509. If, in the act of violating any provision in either of the two preceding sections, any other felony or misdemeanor be committed, the offender shall be punished for the same with such punishment as is attached to such felony or misdemeanor by the laws of the state in which the offense is committed.' Section 5507 prescribes a different offense from that specified in § 5508, has no bearing on the present case, and need not therefore be given here.

The first count of the indictment—stating it generally charged the defendants with an unlawful, malicious, and felonious conspiracy to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate certain named persons, citizens of the United States, in the free exercise and enjoyment of a right and privilege secured to them and to each of them by the Constitution and laws of the United States, in this,—that the said conspirators injured, oppressed, threatened, and intimidated those citizens, in the free exercise and enjoyment of their right and privilege as special agents and employees of the Department of Justice, and as citizens and agents of the United States, to investigate, discover, inform of, and report to the proper officer all violations of the laws of the United States and the evidence relating thereto, in the matter of the fraudulent and unlawful entry of coal and other public lands of the United States in Colorado, theretofore subject to entry unler the laws of the United States. It was further charged in the same count that, in pursuance of such unlawful and felonious conspiracy, and to effect the object thereof, the defendants, within the district of Colorado, did kill and murder one Joseph A. Walker.

The second count differs from the first only in the particular that it charges that the alleged conspiracy and murder was because of the persons against whom the conspiracy was formed having freely exercised the right and privilege specified in the first count.

The third count charges substantially the commission of the same offense of conspiracy and murder, because of the exercise by the citizens named of the right and privilege secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States to accept public employment from and to enter the service of the United States as officers, agents, and employees, and to be secure in their persons from bodily harm, injury, and cruelties while discharging the duties belonging to them as such officers, agents, and employees.

It was stipulated by the parties that the defendants might file a demurrer to the indictment and to each count thereof, as well as 'a plea in bar in the nature of a plea of former acquittal' to so much of each count as charged them with the crime of having killed and murdered one Walker, named in the indictment, the stipulation reciting, 'said charge of murder being based upon § 5509 of the Revised Statutes, and that the filing of said demurrer shall be without prejudice, in any respect, to the said plea, and likewise the said plea shall be without prejudice, in any respect, to the said demurrer.'

The court made an order of record recognizing and giving effect to the above stipulation. The defendants filed a joint and several demurrer, assailing the sufficiency of each count of the indictment. In view of the state of the record and of the conclusions reached by the court, we need not set out at large the various grounds of that demurrer.

The defendants filed special pleas in bar of so much of each count of the indictment as charged that the defendants' in the act of violating § 5508, killed and murdered Walker for the purpose of giving effect to the alleged conspiracy. To each special plea the government filed a demurrer.

The special pleas charged in substance that theretofore, in a named court of Colorado, the defendants were charged with the commission of the same murder as that referred to in the indictment herein; that they were arrested and tried in that court (which had full jurisdiction to try the offense charged) and were duly and regularly acquitted of the above charge of murder, and discharged from custody. This acquittal was pleaded as a bar to so much of the indictment in the present conspiracy case in the Federal court as sought to enforce, notwithstanding the acquittal of the defendants in the state court, the provisions of § 5509 of the Revised Statutes.

The court below overruled the demurrer to the indictment, and adjudged each plea in bar to be sufficient. The government, electing to stand by its demurrer to the special pleas, the district court of the United States, by an order to that effect, discharged the defendants from that part of each count in the indictment which related to the charge of their having murdered Walker, in violation of the laws of the state, in the act of committing the alleged conspiracy in violation of the statute of the United States.

The United States thereupon prosecuted the present writ of error under the act of March 2d, 1907, chap. 2564, authorizing the United States to prosecute writs of error in criminal cases on certain points. That act is as follows: 'That a writ of error may be taken by and on behalf of the United States from the district or circuit courts direct to the Supreme Court of the United States in all criminal cases, in the following instances, to wit: From a decision or judgment quashing, setting aside, or sustaining a demurrer to any indictment, or any count thereof, where such decision or judgment is based upon the invalidity or construction of the statute upon which the indictment is founded. From a decision arresting a judgment of conviction for insufficiency of the indictment, where such decision is based upon the invalidity or construction of the statute upon which the indictment is founded. From the decision or judgment sustaining a special plea in bar, when the defendant has not been put in jeopardy. The writ of error in all such cases shall be taken within thirty days after the decision or judgment has been rendered, and shall be diligently prosecuted and shall have precedence over all other cases. Pending the presecution...