Source: https://openjurist.org/273/us/593
Timestamp: 2019-04-20 14:52:28+00:00

Document:
Roscoe Davis, all of Washington, D. C., and Harold C. Faulkner and Louis V. Crowley, both of San Francisco, Cal., for petitioners.
This is a review by certiorari of the conviction of George Ford, George Harris, J. Evelyn, Charles H. Belanger, and Vincent Quartararo, of a conspiracy, contrary to section 37 of the Criminal Code (Comp. St. § 10201), to violate the National Prohibition Act, title 2, §§ 3 and 27 (41 Stat. 305, 308, 316, c. 85 (Comp. St. §§ 10138 1/2 aa, 10138 1/2 p)), and the Tariff Act of 1922, § 593(b) being 42 Stat. 858, 982, c. 356 (Comp. St. § 5841h13). The trial and conviction resulted largely from the seizure of the British vessel Quadra, hovering in the high seas off the Farallon Islands, territory of the United States, 25 miles west from San Francisco. The ship, her officers, her crew, and cargo of liquor were towed into the port of San Francisco. The seizure was made under the authority of the treaty between Great Britain and the United States, proclaimed by the President May 22, 1924 (43 Stat. 1761), as a convention to aid in the prevention of the smuggling of intoxicating liquors into the United States.
The main questions presented are, first, whether the seizure of the vessel was in accordance with the treaty; second, whether the treaty prohibits prosecution of the persons, subjects of Great Britain, on board the seized vessel brought within the jurisdiction of the United States upon the landing of such vessel, for illegal importation of liquor; third, whether the treaty authorizes prosecution of such persons not only for the substantive offense of illegal importation or attempt to import but also for conspiracy to effect it; and, fourth, whether such persons without the United States conspiring and co-operating to violate its laws with other persons who are within the United States, and to commit overt acts therein, can be prosecuted therefor when thereafter found in the United States.
The petitioners and 55 others were indicted in November, 1924, for carrying on a continuous conspiracy at the bay of San Francisco in the jurisdiction of the United States, from January 1, 1924, to November of that year, the date of the indictment, to commit offenses against the laws of the United States, first, by introducing into and transporting in the United States intoxicating liquor in violation of the National Prohibition Act; second, by importing liquor into the United States in violation of section 593, subdivision (b) of the Tariff Act of 1922, making it a penal offense to introduce merchandise into the United States in violation of law; and, third, by violation of the terms of the treaty. It charged as overt acts the loading of 12,000 cases of liquor on the Quadra at Vancouver, British Columbia, her proceeding on September 10, 1924, to a point less than 12 miles from the Farallon Islands, a distance which could be traversed in less than an hour by the Quadra and by the motorboats, the 903-B, C-55, Marconi, California, Ocean Queen, and divers others, by which the liquor was then delivered from her and imported into the United States; that on the 29th of September, 1924, the defendants landed from the steamer Quadra a barrel containing 100 gallons of whisky, and at another time on October 11, 1924, a large variety of alcohol, gin, brandy, whisky, and vermouth; and that at another time, on October 12th, the day of the seizure, they attempted to land 89 sacks of whisky, but that two of the defendants, who were on the small craft C-55, were arrested and were prevented from carrying out their purpose. Two defendants pleaded guilty. Of 29 defendants tried, 19, including all the crew of the Quadra, were acquitted, and 10, including the captain and the first and second officers of the Quadra, were convicted. Of these 10, 5, including the three officers, are now before the court as petitioners. The convictions were affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit. 10 F. (2d) 339.
The validity of the indictment is attacked, first, because it charges that the conspiracy was to violate the treaty, although the treaty creates no offense against the law of the United States. This is true, but that part of the indictment is merely surplusage and may be rejected. Bailey v. United States (C. C. A.) 5 F. (2d) 437; Remus v. United States (C. C. A.) 291 F. 591; United States v. Weiss (D. C.) 293 F. 992, 995; United States v. Drawdy (D. C.) 288 F. 567, 570. The trial court took this view. But it is contended that this is to amend the indictment, and comes within the inhibition of the principle of Ex parte Bain, 121 U. S. 1, 7 S. Ct. 781, 30 L. Ed. 849. That decision condemns the striking out of words from an indictment. The action here complained of is merely a judicial holding that a useless averment is innocuous and may be ignored. Goto v. Lane, 265 U. S. 393, 402, 44 S. Ct. 525, 68 L. Ed. 1070; Salinger v. United States, 272 U. S. 542, 47 S. Ct. 173, 71 L. Ed. 398, November 23, 1926. Next it is said that the indictment is bad for duplicity. It charges a continuous conspiracy by the defendants, at the Bay of San Francisco, between January 1, 1924, and the date of finding the indictment, to import into the United States intoxicating liquor in violation of its laws. It mentions two of such laws, and, as section 37 of the Criminal Code requires, it describes several overt acts in pursuance of the conspiracy alleged. The charge is unitary in relating to one continuous conspiracy, although in proof of it different circumstances constituting it and overt acts in pursuance of it are disclosed. This does not constitute duplicity. Frohwerk v. United States, 249 U. S. 204, 210, 39 S. Ct. 249, 63 L. Ed. 561; Joplin Co. v. United States, 236 U. S. 531, 548, 35 S. Ct. 291, 59 L. Ed. 705.
The evidence for the government at the trial further showed there were three vessels, the Quadra, the Malahat, and the Coal Harbour, chartered by a cargo-owning corporation called the Consolidated Exporters' Corporation, Limited, of Canada, and loaded at Vancouver, British Columbia, with large cargoes of miscellaneous liquors; that the Malahat left Vancouver in May, officially destined to Buenaventura, Colombia; that the Coal Harbour left the same port in July, with a similar cargo officially destined to La Libertad, San Salvador, and the Quadra left there in September, officially destined to La Libertad. The captains of these vessels, while hovering near the Farallones, were constantly in touch with the convicted defendants Quartararo and Belanger at San Francisco, and acted to some extent under their orders and directions. Quartararo was the most active agent of the conspiracy on shore. Belanger was a director of the Canadian corporation above named. He arranged for and had sent from San Francisco to the Malahat burlap containers to be used for landing the bottled liquor, thence to be transferred to the Quadra, and also gave the orders to transfer liquor from one vessel to another, and to bring designated liquor from the vessels' cargoes to the shore. The Quadra was supplied with fuel oil from the shore, pursuant to prearrangement. None of the seagoing vessels above named proceeded to their destinations officially described in their ship's papers, but cruised up and down between the Farallones and the Golden Gate, where the exchanges of liquor and sacks were made, and where the needed oil was delivered, and from which the liquor was carried by small boats to a landing place called Oakland Creek in San Francisco. The evidence of the conspiracy, the landing of the liquor, and the complicity of the convicted defendants therein was ample and practically undenied.
There was a preliminary motion to exclude and suppress the evidence of the ship and cargo. It was contended that the seizure was unlawful, because not within the zone of the high seas prescribed by the treaty, and the officers of the Quadra being prosecuted were protected against its use as evidence against them under the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the federal Constitution. The motion was heard by the District Court without a jury, and was denied in an opinion reported in U. S. v. Ford, 3 F. (2d) 643. The evidence of the government showed that the Quadra was seized at a distance from the Farallon Islands of 5.7 miles, and a test made later of the speed of the motor boat C-55 caught carrying liquor from her showed that it could traverse 6.6 miles in an hour. There was a conflict as to the exact position of the Quadra at the time of the seizure. It was further objected that the speed of the motor boat was not made under the same conditions as those which existed at the time of the seizure.
It os objected that the question of the validity of the seizure should have been submitted to the jury. So far as the objection relates to the admission of evidence, it has already been settled by this court that the question is for the court and not for the jury. Steele v. United States, 267 U. S. 505, 511, 45 S. Ct. 417, 69 L. Ed. 761; Gila Valley Railroad Co. v. Hall, 232 U. S. 94, 103, 34 S. Ct. 229, 58 L. Ed. 521; Bartlett v. Smith, 11 Mees. & W. 483; Doe dem. Jenkins v. Devies, 10 Adol. & E. (N. S.) 314; Cleave v. Jones, 7 Exch. 421, 425; 5 Wigmore on Evidence (2d Ed.) p. 556, § 2550.
It is further objected, however, that the issue as to the place of the seizure, though submitted to and disposed of by the court in respect to the admissibility of evidence, should also have been submitted to the jury on the general issue. The Solicitor General answers, on the authority of Ker v. Illinois, 119 U. S. 436, 7 S. Ct. 225, 30 L. Ed. 421, that an illegal seizure would not have ousted the jurisdiction of the court to try the defendants. But the Ker Case does not apply here. It related to a trial in a state court, and this court found that the illegal seizure of the defendant therein violated neither the federal Constitution, nor a federal law, nor a treaty of the United States, and so that the validity of their trial after alleged seizure was not a matter of federal cognizance. Here a treaty of the United States is directly involved and the question is quite different.
But there is a reason why this assignment of error cannot prevail. The issue whether the ship was seized within the prescribed limit did not affect the question of the defendants' guilt or innocence. It only affected the right of the court to hold their persons for trial. It was necessarily preliminary to that trial. The proper way of raising the issue of fact of the place of seizure was by a plea to the jurisdiction. A plea to the jurisdiction must precede that plea of not guilty. Such a plea was not filed. The effect of the failure to file it was to waive the question of the jurisdiction of the persons of defendants. Dowdell v. United States, 221 U. S. 325, 332, 31 S. Ct. 590, 55 L. Ed. 753; Albrecht v. United States, 273 U. S. 1, 47 S. Ct. 250, 71 L. Ed. —, January 3, 1927; Gardner v. United States, 5 Ind. T. 150, 156, 82 S. W. 704; Regina v. Stone, 23 Ont. 46, 50; In re Paul, 5 Alberta Law 442; State v. Bishop, 7 Conn. 181; State v. Watson, 20 R. I. 354, 39 A. 193, 78 Am. St. Rep. 871; State v. Kinney, 41 Iowa, 424; In re Roszcynialla, 99 Wis. 534, 538, 75 N. W. 167; State ex rel. Brown v. Fitzgerald, 51 Minn. 534, 53 N. W. 799; In re Brown, 62 Kan. 648, 64 P. 76; State v. Browning, 70 S. C. 466, 50 S. E. 185; Hollibaugh v. Hehn, 13 Wyo. 269, 79 P. 1044; In re Blum. 9 Misc. Rep. 571, 30 N. Y. S. 396; 1 Bishop Crim. Proc. (2d Ed.) sections 730, 744 and 746; 1 Chitty Criminal Law (5th Am. Ed.) p. 438. It was not error, therefore, to refuse to submit to the jury on the trial the issue as to the place of the seizure.
There was a demurrer to the indictment, on the ground that it did not state facts sufficient to constitute an offense against the United States, that the court had no jurisdiction to try those who were on the Quadra because seized beyond the 3-mile limit, and that the acts charged were not within the jurisdiction of the court. The conspiracy was laid at the Bay of San Francisco, which was within the jurisdiction of the court. The conspiracy charged was undoubtedly a conspiracy to violate the laws of the United States under section 37 of the Criminal Code. The court had jurisdiction to try the offense charged in the indictment and the defendants were in its jurisdiction because they were actually in its custody.
'The high contracting parties declare that it is their firm intention to uphold the principle that 3 marine miles extending from the coast-line outwards and measured from low-water mark constitute the proper limits of territorial waters.
(1) His Britannic Majesty agrees that he will raise no objection to the boarding of private vessels under the British flag outside the limits of territorial waters by the authorities of the United States, its territories or possessions in order that enquiries may be addressed to those on board and an examination be made of the ship's papers for the purpose of ascertaining whether the vessel or those on board are endeavoring to import or have imported alcoholic beverages into the United States, its territories or possessions in violation of the laws there in force.
When such enquiries and examination show a reasonable ground for suspicion, a search of the vessel may be instituted.
No penalty or forfeiture under the laws of the United States shall be applicable or attach to alcoholic liquors or to vessels or persons by reason of the carriage of such liquors, when such liquors the listed as sea stores or cargo destined for a port foreign to the United States, its teritories or possessions on board British vessels voyaging to or from ports of the United States, or its territories or possessions or passing through the territorial waters thereof, and such carriage shall be as now provided by law with respect to the transit of such liquors through the Panama Canal, provided that such liquors shall be kept under seal continuously while the vessel on which they are carried remains within said territorial waters and that no part of such liquors shall at any time or place be unladen within the United States, its territories or possessions.
The treaty indicates a considerate purpose on the part of Great Britain to discourage her merchant ships from taking part in the illicit importation of liquor into the United States, and the further purpose of securing without objection or seizure the transportation on her vessels, through the waters and in ports of the United States, of sealed sea stores and sealed cargoes of liquor for delivery at other destinations than the United States. The counter consideration moving to the United States is the enlargement and a definite fixing of the zone of legitimate seizure of British hovering vessels seeking to defeat the laws against importation of liquor into this country from the sea. The treaty did not change the territorial jurisdiction of the United States to try offenses against its importation laws. That remained exactly as it was. If the ship could not have been condemned for such offenses before the treaty, it cannot be condemned now. If the persons on board could not have been convicted before the treaty, they cannot be convicted now. The treaty provides for the disposition of the vessel after seizure. It has to be taken into port for adjudication. What is to be adjudicated? The vessel. What does that include? The inference that both ship and those on board are to be subjected to prosecution on incriminating evidence is fully justified by paragraph 1 of article II in specifically permitting examination of the ship papers and inquiries to those on board to ascertain whether not only the ship, but also those on board are endeavoring to import or have imported liquor into the United States. If those on board are to be excluded, then by the same narrow construction the cargo of liquor is to escape adjudication, though it is subject to search as the persons on board are to inquiry into their guilt. It is no straining of the language of the article therefore to interpret the phrase, 'the vessel may be seized and taken into a port of the United States * * * for adjudication in accordance with such laws,' as intending that not only the vessel but that all and everything on board are to be adjudicated. The seizure and the taking into port necessarily include the cargo and persons on board. They cannot be set adrift or thrown overboard. They must go with the ship; they are identified with it. Their immunity on the high seas from seizure or being taken into port came from the immunity of the vessel by reason of her British nationality. When the vessel lost this immunity, they lost it, too; and when they were brought into a port of the United States and into the jurisdiction of its District Court, they were just as much subject to its adjudication as the ship. If they committed an offense against the United States and its liquor importation laws, they cannot escape conviction, unless the treaty affirmatively confers on them immunity from prosecution. There certainly are no express words granting such immunity. Why should it be implied? If it was intended by the parties why should it not have been expressed?
What reason could Great Britain have for a stipulation clothing with immunity either contraband liquor which should be condemned or the guilty persons aboard, when the very object of the treaty was to help the United States in its effort to protect itself against such liquor and such persons from invasion by the sea? To give immunity to the cargo and the guilty persons on board would be to clear those whose guilt should condemn the vessel and to restore to them the liquor, and thus release both for another opportunity to flout the laws of a friendly government, which it was the purpose of the treaty to discourage. The owner of the vessel would thus alone be subjected to penalty, and he would suffer for the primary guilt of the immunized owner of the liquor. Such implication of immunity leads to inconsistency and injustice. The palpable incongruity contended for is such that, without express words, we cannot attribute to the high contracting parties intention to bring it about.
The case of the United States v. Rauscher, 119 U. S. 407, 7 S. Ct. 234, 30 L. Ed. 425, is relied on to establish the immunity contended for in this case. Rauscher was convicted under an indictment in a federal court for cruel and unusual punishment of one of the crew of an American vessel of which Rauscher was an officer. He had been extradited from British territory for murder on the high seas under section 5339 of the Revised Statutes. The question was whether he could be tried in this country for another offense than that for which he was extradited, for an offense for which the treaty granted no right to extradition. The extradition treaty was that of August 9, 1842, between Great Britain and the United States (8 Stat. 576), in which each country, upon mutual requisition of the other, agreed to deliver to justice all persons who, being charged with the crime of murder, or assault, with intent to commit murder, or piracy, or arson, or robbery, or forgery, or the utterance of forged paper, committed within the jurisdiction of either, should seek an asylum or should be found, within the territories of the other: Provided that this should only be done upon such evidence of criminality as, according to the laws of the place where the fugitive or person so charged should be found, would justify his apprehension and commitment for trial, if the crime or offense had there been committed; and the respective judges and other magistrates of the two governments were given jurisdiction upon complaint made under oath, to issue a warrant for the apprehension of the fugitive or person so charged, that he might be brought before such judges or other magistrates, respectively, to the end that the evidence of criminality might be heard and considered; and if, on such hearing, the evidence be deemed sufficient to sustain the charge, it should be the duty of the examining judge or magistrate to certify the same to the proper executive authority that a warrant could issue for the surrender of such fugitive. The court held that a defendant thus extradited could not be tried for any offense other than the one for which he was extradited. The case was decided at the end of a prolonged controversy between Great Britain and the United States, through their State Departments, on the same issue presented in several cases.
The opinion of the court was delivered by Mr. Justice Miller, and his conclusions were based, first, on the ground that, according to the doctrine of publicists and writers on international law, the country receiving the offender against its laws from another country, in the absence of treaty, has no right to proceed against him for any other offense than that for which he had been delivered up; second, that the enumeration of the offenses in the treaty there involved marked such a clear line in regard to the magnitude and importance of those offenses that it was impossible to give any other interpretation to it than the exclusion of the right of extradition in others; third, the provisions of the treaty giving a party an examination before a judicial tribunal in which before he should be delivered up, the offense for which he was to be extradited must be proven to the satisfaction of the tribunal, left no doubt that the purpose of the treaty was that the person delivered up should be tried for that offense and no other; and, fourth, that the provisions of sections 5272 and 5275 of the Revised Statutes (Comp. St. §§ 10118, 10121) required such course in the trial of extradited persons.
This review of the opinion in the Rauscher Case shows that it affords no support for the implication of immunity of the smugglers or would-be smugglers or the contraband cargo in the case before us. If it were attempted to try the defendants or to forfeit the cargo that was brought into port for smuggling of forbidden opium, a different question might possibly be presented. But here the subjecting of the defendants and the cargo by the seizure of the vessel to the jurisdiction of the courts of the United States is for a conspiracy to do the smuggling of liquor, which was the ground for the vessel's seizure. This destroys any real analogy between the Rauscher Case and this. More than this, the strength of the provisions of the treaty in the Rauscher Case as detailed in the opinion to establish the sound application of the exclusio maxim of interpretation shows how weak by contrast is its application to the circumstances of this case.
These defendants were indicted under section 37 of the Criminal Code of the United States for having conspired at the Bay of San Francisco to violate the National Prohibition Act and the Tariff Act of 1922. Section 37 of the Criminal Code provides that, if two or more persons conspire to commit an offense against the United States, and one or more of such parties commit any act to effect the object of he conspiracy, each shall be punished.
The Tariff Act of September 21, 1922 (42 Stat. c. 356, § 593(b), being Comp. St. § 5841h13), provides that, if any person fraudulently or knowingly imports or brings into the United States, or assists in doing so, any merchandise contrary to law, he shall be fined or imprisoned. The importation of liquor into the United States is contrary to law, as shown by the Prohibition Act.
Considering the friendly purpose of both countries in making this treaty, we do not think any narrow construction should be given which would defeat it. The parties were dealing with a situation well understood by both. In effect they wished to enable the United States better to police its seaboard, by enabling it within an hour's sail from its coast, beyond its territorial jurisdiction, and on the high seas, to seize British actual or would-be smugglers of liquor and, if they were caught, to proceed criminally against them as if seized within the 3-mile limit for the same offenses in reference to liquor importation. No particular laws by title or date were referred to in the treaty, but only the purpose and effect of them. Plainly it was the purpose of the contracting parties that vessels and men who are caught under the treaty and are proven to have violated any laws of the United States, by which the importation of liquor is intended to be stopped through forfeiture or punishment, may be prosecuted after the seizure. The National Prohibition Act expressly punishes the importation of intoxicating liquor. The Tariff Act of 1922 declares it an offense to make any illegal importation and so makes it an offense to import intoxicating liquor. Section 37 of the Criminal Code makes it an offense to conspire to violate the Prohibition Act and the Tariff Act in respect to the importation of liquor, if the conspiracy is accompanied by overt acts in pursuance of it. The conspiracy act is the one most frequently used in the prosecution of liquor importations from the sea, because such smuggling usually necessitates a conspiracy in preparation for the landing. We think that any more limited construction would not satisfy the reasonable expectations of the two parties. Nothing in the words of the treaty make such an interpretation a difficult one. The penalties under each act differ from those under the others. The Tariff Act and the conspiracy section each imposes a maximum penalty of two years, while that of the Prohibition Act is only six months, with a lower maximum of fine.
The next objection of the defendants taken from the Quadra is that on all the evidence they were entitled to a directed verdict of not guilty. They argue that they are charged with a conspiracy illegally to import or to attempt to import liquor into the United States, when they were corporeally at all times during the alleged conspiracy out of the jurisdiction of the United States, and so could commit no offense against it. What they are charged with is conspiring 'at the Bay of San Francisco' with the defendants Quartararo and Belanger illegally to import liquor, and the overt acts of thus smuggling and attempting to smuggle it. The conspiracy was continuously in operation between the defendants in the United States and those on the high seas adjacent thereto, and of the four overt acts committed in pursuance thereof, three were completed and took effect within the United States, and the fourth failed of its effect only by reason of the intervention of the federal officers. In other words, the conspiring was directed to violation of the United States law within the United States, by men within and without it, and everything done was at the procuration and by the agency of each for the other in pursuance of the conspiracy and the intended illegal importation. In such a case all are guilty of the offense of conspiring to violate the United States law whether they are in or out of the country.
Other cases in this court which sustain the same view are Benson v. Henkle, 198 U. S. 1, 25 S. Ct. 569, 49 L. Ed. 919, In re Palliser, 136 U. S. 257, 10 S. Ct. 1034, 34 L. Ed. 514, Horner v. United States, 143 U. S. 207, 12 S. Ct. 407, 36 L. Ed. 126, Burton v. United States, 202 U. S. 344, 387, 26 S. Ct. 688, 50 L. Ed. 1057, 6 Ann. Cas. 362, and Lamar v. United States, 240 U. S. 60, 65, 66, 36 S. Ct. 255, 60 L. Ed. 526.
It will be found among the earlier cases that the principle is sometimes qualified by saying that the person out of the state cannot be held for a crime committed within the state by his procuration, unless it is done by an innocent agent or a mechanical one; but the weight of authority is now against such limitation. Generally the cases show that jurisdiction exists to try one who is a conspirator, whenever the conspiracy is in whole or in part carried on in the country whose laws are conspired against. In Hyde v. United States, 225 U. S. 347, 32 S. Ct. 793, 56 L. Ed. 1114, Ann. Cas. 1914A, 614, and Brown v. Elliott, 225 U. S. 392, 32 S. Ct. 812, 56 L. Ed. 1136, the question was whether a conspiracy could be tried not where it was carried on, but in a place where only an overt act under it was performed by one conspirator. There was strong diversity of opinion among the justices, though a majority sustained the venue following the Court of King's Bench in Rex v. Brisac and Scott, 4 East, 164. But we have no such ground for difference here, for the conspiracy was being carried on all the time by communications exchanged between the conspirators in San Francisco and on the high seas just beyond the 3-mile limit near San Francisco Bay, and the overt acts were in both places.
'And on this point he cites Broom's Legal Maxims (2d Ed.) p. 643; Co. Lit. 258a; and the opinion of Hosmer, C. J., in Barkhamsted v. Parsons, 3 Conn. 1, that 'the principal of common law, 'Qui facit per alium, facit per se,' is of universal application, both in criminal and civil cases."
We have thus disposed of the chief objections. There are some objections on the admission of evidence, one with respect to the receipt of a telegram charged by the government to be from Belanger, a defendant, sent to Dorgan, his codirector of the Canadian corporation which owned the cargoes of liquor; another objection based on the receipt in evidence of 83 dollar bills cut in two with liquor orders written on them, associated in the evidence with Quartararo, and charged to show that he had used them for the purpose of sending them out to the officers of the rum runners to identify his agents for the safe delivery of the liquor. Another was as to the evidence of a witness, who pleaded guilty and who was permitted to testify that, at the instance of Quartararo, shown by the evidence to be the chief operator in the conspiracy, he brought into San Francisco liquor in small boats, not only from the Quadra, the Coal Harbour, and the Malahat, controlled by the Canadian corporation, but many times during the period of the conspiracy alleged in the indictment also from a vessel called the Norburn, without the direct evidence that the Norburn was controlled by the same Canadian corporation, and therefore that it was irrelevant evidence of another conspiracy, rather than the one charged. With respect to all these instances, we think that there was sufficient probable connection with the conspiracy already shown to allow the items of evidence to be introduced, leaving to the jury the weight of it, but that even if in any of such instances there was error, they were merely cumulative proof of the conspiracy which was practically undenied and their admission was harmless.

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