United States v. Wilson

• Decision Date: 17 November 1960
• Docket Number: No. 8172.,8172.
• Citation: 284 F.2d 407
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Charles Haskel WILSON, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

284 F.2d 407 (1960)

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Charles Haskel WILSON, Appellant.

No. 8172.

United States Court of Appeals Fourth Circuit.

Argued November 15, 1960.

Decided November 17, 1960.

Lewis T. Booker, Richmond, Va. (Court-assigned counsel), for appellant.

Hugh E. Monteith, Asst. U. S. Atty., Sylva, N. C. (J. M. Baley, Jr., U. S. Atty., Asheville, N. C., on the brief), for appellee.

Before SOBELOFF, Chief Judge, BOREMAN, Circuit Judge, and HARRY E. WATKINS, District Judge.

SOBELOFF, Chief Judge.

This is the appeal of Charles Haskel Wilson who was convicted in the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina for violating Title 18, section 641 of the United States Code. The indictment charged that on December 2, 1958, at Newton, North Carolina, he stole from an armory 72 specified weapons, belonging to the United States, "said property being of the value of $7,500.00." The District Court sentenced him to 7½ years confinement in the penitentiary. He was permitted to prosecute this appeal in forma pauperis, and was represented here by a court-appointed lawyer.

Among the questions presented in this appeal were the sufficiency of the evidence, alleged errors committed at the trial, and the legality of the sentence. We turn first to the question of whether the sentence imposed was within permissible limits. In effect, the statute,¹ creates two separate crimes with different penalties. If the value of the stolen property does not exceed the sum of $100.00 the maximum penalty is a fine of $1,000.00 or imprisonment for not more than one year, or both; but if the value exceeds $100.00 the fine may be as much as $10,000.00 or the imprisonment may be as much as ten years, or both such fine and imprisonment.

If a value of more than $100.00 had been proved along with the other elements of the crime, the sentence of 7½ years would have been within permissible limits. The Government, however, failed to produce any evidence whatsoever as to the value of the stolen weapons. We are asked to take judicial notice that 72 rifles are worth more than $100.00, but we cannot on the basis of anything in the testimony form a judgment as to value for the purpose of supporting the greater penalty. Nor, in the absence of any proof of value, could the jury be permitted to speculate on this point merely from the appearance of the articles. A fact which distinguishes a violation punishable by imprisonment for not more than one year from a violation punishable by imprisonment for ten years cannot be permitted to rest upon conjecture or surmise. In order to sustain the imposition of the higher penalty, it was as incumbent upon the Government to prove a value in excess of $100.00 as it was to prove the identity of the defendant as the perpetrator of the crime, or the ownership of the property.

On this appeal the Government relied on two cases, which in our opinion afford no support to its contention. The first case is that of United States v. Marpes, 3 Cir., 1952, 198 F.2d 186, certiorari denied 1952, 344 U.S. 876, 73 S.Ct. 170, 97 L.Ed. 678. There, the precise value of the stolen goods was not proved, but the court pointed to evidence of a character not present in the instant case. The value in excess of $100.00 was permitted to be inferred from the...