United States v. Yount

• Decision Date: 21 October 1920
• Docket Number: 4773.
• Citation: 267 F. 861
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. YOUNT et al.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania

267 F. 861

UNITED STATES v. YOUNT et al.

No. 4773.

United States District Court, W.D. Pennsylvania.

October 21, 1920

D. J Driscoll, U.S. Atty., of St. Marys, Pa., and Daniel S. Horne Asst. U.S. Atty., of Pittsburgh, Pa.

Thomas J. Hoffman, of Pittsburgh, Pa., for defendants.

THOMSON District Judge.

This is an application by the United States attorney for an order to remove the defendants to the Northern district of Illinois Eastern division, there to answer a charge of conspiracy preferred by indictment against the defendants and others. The defendants were arrested and brought before the United States commissioner of this district, and after hearing were committed, on their failure to give bail. Thereupon this application for removal was made to this court. The application is resisted strenuously by the defendants, each of them denying any complicity in the conspiracy charged; Mr. Taylor in addition offering evidence that he was never within the jurisdiction of the court where the conspiracy is charged to have been made, and was in no way a party thereto. It is also alleged by the defendants that the section of the act of Congress under which they are indicted is unconstitutional and void, and that therefore they should not be removed or held to answer the charge in the indictment.

The Supreme Court has mapped out with clearness the procedure under section 1014 of the Revised Statutes (Comp. St. Sec. 1674), where it is sought to remove a defendant from the district where arrested to that where the offense is triable. It is distinctly ruled that, while the indictment constitutes prima facie evidence of probable cause, it is not conclusive, and evidence may be offered by the defendant tending to show that no offense triable in the district to which removal is sought has been committed; that in such a proceeding the function of the judge is not ministerial, but judicial; that--

'he must look into the indictment, to ascertain whether an offense against the United States is charged, find whether there was probable cause, and determine whether the court to which the accused is sought to be removed has jurisdiction of the same. ' The liberty of the citizen, and his general right to be tried in a tribunal or forum of his domicile, imposes upon the judge the duty of considering and passing upon those questions.' ' Tinsley v. Treat, 205 U.S. 20, 27 Sup.Ct. 430, 51 L.Ed. 689; Beavers v. Henkel, 194 U.S. 73, 24 Sup.Ct. 605, 48 L.Ed. 882.

Keeping these principles in mind, we turn to the facts of the case. The defendants are indicted under section 4 of the Act of Congress known as the Lever Act, approved August 10, 1917, as amended by Act Oct. 22, 1919, c. 80, which reads as follows:

'Sec. 4. That it is hereby made unlawful for any person willfully to destroy any necessaries for the purpose of enhancing the price or restricting the supply thereof; knowingly to commit waste or willfully to permit preventable deterioration of any necessaries in or in connection with their production, manufacture, or distribution; to hoard, as defined in section 6 of this act, any necessaries; to monopolize or attempt to monopolize, either locally or generally, any necessaries; to engage in any discriminatory and unfair, or any deceptive or wasteful practice or device, or to make any unjust or unreasonable rate or charge in handling or dealing in or with any necessaries; to conspire, combing, agree, or arrange with any other person, (a) to limit the facilities for transporting, producing, harvesting, manufacturing, supplying, storing, or dealing in any necessaries; (b) to restrict the supply of any necessaries; (c) to restrict distribution of any necessaries; (d) to prevent, limit, or lessen the manufacture or production of any necessaries in order to enhance the price thereof; or (e) to exact excessive prices for any necessaries, or to aid or abet the doing of any act made unlawful by this section.' 'Any person violating any of the provisions of this section, upon conviction thereof shall be fined not exceeding $5,000 or be imprisoned for not more than two years, or both: Provided, that this section shall not apply to any farmer, gardener, horticulturist, vineyardist, planter, ranchman, dairyman, stockman, or other agriculturist, with respect to the farm products produced or raised upon land owned, leased, or cultivated by him: Provided further, that nothing in this act shall be construed to forbid or make unlawful collective bargaining by any co-operative association or other association of farmers, dairymen, gardeners, or other producers of farm products with respect to the farm products produced or raised by its members upon land owned, leased, or cultivated by them.'

The purpose of the act, as set forth in its title, is:

'An act to provide further for the national security and defense by encouraging the production, conserving the supply, and controlling the distribution of food products and fuel.'

This section of the act of Congress as amended is assailed as violating the Fifth Amendment to the federal Constitution, providing that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, in that it creates a classification unreasonable, arbitrary, and unjust. Without attempting an extensive review of the decisions of the Supreme Court and other authorities bearing on this important question, I have chosen rather to summarize the principles enunciated in them, or clearly deducible therefrom, as the same may be applicable to this case:

First. The 'due process of law,' by which Congress is limited in the Fifth Amendment, and the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, is equivalent to the 'law of the land,' and is intended to protect the citizen against arbitrary action, and secure to all persons equal and impartial justice under the law. Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U.S. 97, 24 L.Ed. 616; Missouri Pacific Ry. v. Humes, 115 U.S. 512, 6 Sup.Ct. 110, 29 L.Ed. 463.

Second. It seems reasonably clear that the 'due process of law' provision of the Fifth Amendment is broad enough in its scope and purpose to include the 'equal protection of the laws,' which no state may deny to any person under the provisions of the Fourteenth Amendment. Leeper v. Texas, 139 U.S. 462, 11 Sup.Ct. 577, 35 L.Ed. 225; Giozza v. Tiernan, 148 U.S. 657, 13 Sup.Ct. 721, 37 L.Ed. 599.

Third. Classification is allowable under these provisions of the Constitution. This is conspicuously true as to the states where certain powers, termed the police powers, relating to the safety, health, and morals of the public, exist in the sovereignty of the state, and the rights of the individual as to liberty and property are held on such reasonable conditions as may be imposed by the governing power of the state in the exercise of these police powers. With these the Fourteenth Amendment does not interfere. These powers were not surrendered by the states when the federal Constitution was adopted, nor taken from them when the Fourteenth Amendment became a part of the fundamental law of the land. Railroad Co. v....