Wolf v. United States
| Decision Date | 10 April 1922 |
| Docket Number | 2941. |
| Citation | 283 F. 885 |
| Parties | WOLF et al. v. UNITED STATES. [1] |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Rehearing Denied October 6, 1922.
James M. Johnson and Donald W. Johnson, both of Kansas City, Mo for plaintiffs in error.
Sylvester R. Rush, of Chicago, Ill., and Edw. C. Knotts, of Springfield, Ill., for the United States.
Before BAKER, ALSCHULER, and EVANS, Circuit Judges.
Defendants father and son, were convicted and sentenced to serve prison sentences in addition to paying substantial fines for violating section 37 of the Criminal Code (Comp. St. Sec. 10201). The specific charge preferred against them was a conspiracy to defraud the United States, followed by overt acts committed by one or both in furtherance of such conspiracy. The means adopted by defendants as alleged in the indictment were directed toward an evasion or an avoidance of certain government inspections.
When the United States entered the war in 1917, defendants were conducting a relatively small harness business in Quincy, Ill. Their concern sought and secured a small contract with the government, which was followed by many others, until the aggregate of such government contracts totaled $1,825,223. The number of their employees was doubled and redoubled and then doubled again, and it was difficult to secure the services of experienced labor, while inexperienced help was more or less unsatisfactory. It is claimed that both quantity and quality suffered thereby.
The government sent several inspectors, one or more being constantly in attendance. Goods were marked 'Rejected' or 'Accepted' by the inspectors after inspection, and when accepted they were promptly shipped out, as the demand for the finished goods was urgent. The fraud which was the object of the alleged conspiracy grew out of this inspection, and the most positive and persuasive evidence in support of the charge came largely from witnesses who were employed in the factory and who were in some instances self-confessed accomplices.
The assignments of error included attacks upon rulings involving: (a) The sufficiency of the indictment; (b) the admission of evidence; (c) the motion to dismiss for want of sufficient evidence to support the verdict of guilty; (d) instructions to the jury.
It is hardly necessary to consider separately the various criticisms of the indictment. The reports abound in decisions which lay down the requirements so fully that it is hardly justifiable to again restate them. This court had occasion to consider at length the necessary and proper allegations charging a conspiracy to defraud in Jelke v. United States, 255 F. 264, 166 C.C.A. 434, and the authorities were there collected fully and carefully. The rules there laid down have since been reannounced by this court.
Applying the rules there announced to some of the criticisms directed toward the indictment under consideration, we find no merit in the demand that the contracts (some 14 in number, which, if set out in full, would have covered 225 printed pages) should have been set forth haec verba in the indictment. Equally untenable is the objection that the indictment fails to allege the authority of the officials who signed the contracts for and on behalf of the government.
In the present case not only is the allegation respecting the making and the terms of the contracts sufficiently specific, but, even as against a demand for a bill of particulars, the court would have been justified in refusing the request.
Equally untenable is the claim that the indictment is bad because it fails to allege that the government suffered injury through defendant's fraud. Financial loss by the government is not a necessary element of the crime. Haas v. Henkel, 216 U.S. 462, 30 Sup.Ct. 249, 54 L.Ed. 569, 17 Ann.Cas. 1112. It is only necessary to obstruct or defeat the lawful functions of any department of the government. Here it is charged that the fraud consisted in defeating or impairing a proper and necessary inspection of goods manufactured by defendants' company for the government. Obviously this was within the condemnation of the statute. We might add that such allegations, coupled with the rest of the charge, were sufficient to impute a financial loss, were it necessary to sustain the indictment, for defective merchandise must necessarily be worth less than stock made of good leather and properly manufactured.
Much of the criticism directed toward the reception or rejection of evidence finds no support in the record. No objection was made to the reception of such evidence, nor were there any exceptions thereafter taken. In other words, the parties chose to speculate upon what the answers would be and later upon their effect upon the jury. It is too late for them now to ask us to invoke section 269 of the Judicial Code, as amended by the act of March 3, 1911 (Comp. St. Sec. 1246), and to view the record as though objections were duly made and exceptions noted.
In view of the serious character of the offense and the alleged hardship of such sentences as were imposed upon the two men, who up to this time had enjoyed an enviable and untarnished reputation in the community where they have long resided, we have gone through the record and examined the evidence carefully, notwithstanding the absence of objections, with the result that we have not been able to find any reversible error in the rulings respecting the admission and rejection of evidence. The trial judge was especially fortunate in regulating the field of inquiry, yet giving to defendant the widest possible latitude in cross-examination. There was testimony received which may have been prejudicial to defendants, but it was incidental to facts which were relevant and competent.
The criticism that the court permitted the government to bring out prominently the fact that the elder defendant was of German birth and was pro-German in sentiment during the war we have most carefully examined, with the result that we find nothing to sustain the charge except as counsel has called our attention to one bit of evidence. A government inspector was asked about a conversation between himself and the elder Wolf, who was endeavoring to get the inspector to pass certain saddles that had been previously rejected. The entire conversation was called for and given without objection. As a part of Wolf's statement the witness said: ' No exception was noted and no request made to caution the jury respecting the effect of such testimony.
Considering the length of the trial and the volume of testimony taken, it is apparent that the court was scrupulously careful and successful beyond common experience in such matters, in avoiding all foreign or collateral issues.
Directed verdict: In support of the assignment of...
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