Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/160/187/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 14:05:48+00:00

Document:
A certificate by the Commissioner of Pensions that an accompanying paper "is truly copied from the original in the office of the Commissioner of Pensions," taken together with a certificate signed by the Secretary of the Interior and under the seal of that Department, certifying to the official character of the Commissioner of Pensions, is a substantial compliance with the provisions of Rev.Stat. § 882, and authorizes the paper so certified to be admitted in evidence.
For the committing of the offense under Rev.Stat. § 4786 (as amended by the Act of July 4, 1884, c. 181, § 4, 23 Stat. 98, 101) of wrongfully withholding from a pensioner the whole, or any part of the pension due him, an actual withholding of the money before it reaches the hands of the pensioner is essential, and it is not enough that it is fraudulently obtained from him, after it had reached his hands, and that act does not forbid or punish the act of obtaining the money from the pensioner by a false or fraudulent pretence.
appears that there was error as to one and no error as to the other, the judgment below may be reversed here as to the first, and the cause remanded to that court with instructions to enter judgment upon the second count.
At the October term, 1893, of the Circuit Court of the United States for the Northern District of Georgia, an indictment was found against the plaintiff in error, embracing two counts, the first charging him with wrongfully withholding from a pensioner of the United States, one Lucy Burrell, part of a pension allowed and due her and the second accusing him of demanding and receiving, as agent, a greater compensation for services in prosecuting the claim for pension than is provided by the title of the Revised Statutes pertaining to pensions.
The offenses charged in the indictment are made punishable by the final paragraph of Rev.Stat. § 4786, as amended by the Pension Appropriation Act of July 4, 1884, c. 181, § 4, 23 Stat. 99.
his benefit. The pensioner testified that she supposed the check was drawn for twenty-five dollars in favor of her son, while the drawee of the check, Hurley Ballew, testified that it was given him in payment for an insignificant service rendered in connection with the procuring of testimony during the prosecution of the claim for the pension. There was testimony on the second count tending to support the same, although as to this count there was also a conflict in the evidence.
During the course of the trial, a page from the records of the pension office showing the issue of the pension to the pensioner named in the indictment was offered and admitted in evidence over the objection of the accused, to which action of the court exception was duly reserved.
"When a pension check is delivered to a pensioner and she takes the same to a bank and has it cashed, and then deposits the said fund in a bank, and takes a deposit slip therefor, the fund loses its nature and character as pension money, and the ordinary relation of debtor and creditor exists between the pensioner and the bank, and if thereafter, by any device or in any way whatever, the pension attorney obtains a draft from her and draws it out of her general account, he cannot be convicted of withholding under section 5485 of the Revised Statutes, and it would be your duty to acquit him on that count if these be the facts as to that branch of the case."
in this case, could not withhold the money or any part of it by getting the check, which is in evidence here, for eighteen hundred and odd dollars."
seems to be made to Hurley Ballew and endorsed by him, is in evidence, and you will have that out with you."
The court instructed the jury that if they considered the defendant guilty on one count and innocent on the other, they should so find, and, if they found him guilty on both counts, that they should return a general verdict of guilty. This last was the verdict returned. After an ineffectual effort for a new trial, the case was brought here on error.
"Copies of any books, records, papers, or documents in any of the executive departments, authenticated under the seals of such departments, respectively, shall be admitted in evidence equally with the originals thereof."
numbered 1, is truly copied from the original in the office of the Commissioner of Pensions." The records of the pension office constitute part of the records of the Department of the Interior, of which executive department the pension office is but a constituent. We think that the certificates in question, taken together, were a substantial compliance with the statute.
The exception taken to the ruling out of certain answers made by Chamblee, one of defendant's witnesses, on his redirect examination results from the following facts: the witness, upon his examination in chief, testified solely with reference to the circumstances connected with the giving by the pensioner of the check of $1,887.34, which formed the basis of the charge of withholding covered by the first count in the indictment. The cross-examination was confined to the same subject. At the close of the cross-examination, the witness stated that he had been asked by a special examiner of pensions who was investigating the matter what he knew about the consideration of the check in question. The witness further said that A. W. Ballew came and asked him if he had been interviewed by the examiner, to which inquiry of Ballew the witness stated he had answered "Yes," and had informed Ballew that the examiner had questioned him about the $1,800 check, and that he told him that he thought the check had been given for a house and lot. The witness next stated that Mr. Ballew then told him that the pensioner had given the check to Hurley Ballew.
"Q. In that conversation with A. W. Ballew, the defendant here, what did he say was the basis of that money given to Hurley Ballew?"
"A. What did A. W. Ballew say he done as a matter of inducement to her?"
"A. I don't know anything, only that he prosecuted this pension claim, and as to what he had to do with Hurley, I don't know that he ever said anything. I think he told me he got his fee from the pension department as attorney. "
"Q. That is all he ever got?"
"A. That is all he got, I think he told me."
"Q. That he got his fee from the pension department?"
"A. That is all he ever got."
The ground upon which counsel for plaintiff in error rests his claim of admissibility is that, when a confession is put in evidence by the prosecution, it is the right of the accused to demand that all of the conversation in which the alleged confession was made should be received. We are unable to reach the conclusion that Ballew's mere statement to a witness that the pensioner had given his son the check was a confession, or in the nature of a confession. It had no tendency to establish his guilt, or to operate to his prejudice, and confessions are only admitted as being statements against the interest of the party by whom they are claimed to have been made. But the reexamination of the witness was not directed to the ascertainment of what other statements had been made in the conversation upon the subject about which he had testified on his cross-examination, to-wit, the check to Hurley Ballew, but to the drawing out of new matter, not connected with the subject to which the cross-examination related. This was clearly improper. 1 Greenleaf on Evidence, § 467, and cases cited. See also cases cited in note a to ibid., 15th ed. § 201, and People v. Beach, 87 N.Y. 508, 512.
or claimant, or the land warrant issued to any such claimant, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor, and upon conviction thereof shall for every such offence be fined not exceeding give hundred dollars, or imprisonment at hard labor not exceeding two years, or both, in the discretion of the court."
"Any person acting as attorney to receive and receipt for money for and in behalf of any person entitled to a pension shall, before receiving said money, take and subscribe an oath, to be filed with the pension agent, and by him to be transmitted, with the vouchers now required by law, to the proper accounting officer of the Treasury that he has no interest in said money by any pledge, mortgage, sale, assignment, or transfer, and that he does not know or believe that the same has been so disposed of to any person."
"Every guardian having the charge and custody of the pension of his ward who embezzles the same in violation of his trust or fraudulently converts the same to his own use shall be punished by fine not exceeding two thousand dollars or imprisonment at hard labor for a term not exceeding five years, or both."
It may be remarked in passing that it would be as reasonable to argue that one who had fully accounted as guardian, and paid over to his ward the balance due when the ward had attained his or her majority, could be prosecuted under section 4783 if, after such accounting and payment, he fraudulently obtained money from his former ward which might from the proof appear to be a portion of the balance so paid on the accounting, as to contend that when a pension, allowed and due from the government, had been paid to the pensioner, it continued to be "due," in any money transaction between the pensioner or his former agent or attorney.
been withheld, if they believed that before payment over, a scheme to defraud had arisen which was carried out after the pensioner had received the amount of the pension and after it had been by her deposited in bank and had created between her and the bank the legal relation of debtor and creditor. Scammon v. Kimball, 92 U. S. 362, 92 U. S. 369, 370; Florence Mining Co. v. Brown, 124 U. S. 385, 124 U. S. 391. Of course if the indictment had been so framed as to bring the facts which it alleged constituted a withholding within the reach of the first clause of the statute, which forbids the taking of illegal compensation, the instruction given by the court would have been sound. In that case, the taking of the money is made criminal whether done before payment to the pensioner at the time of such payment or at any other time. Withholding, on the contrary, is confined to money due which in no sense embraces that which has been actually paid over to a pensioner, and has passed under his complete control. However much pension money, even when taken into the possession of a pensioner, may retain its identity for certain purposes, we do not think, for the reasons just stated, that this instruction given was sound in law. The elementary rule is that penal statutes must be strictly construed, and it is essential that the crime punished must be plainly and unmistakably within the statute. United States v. Brewer, 139 U. S. 278. It follows, therefore, that the instruction asked was wrongfully refused and the instruction given was erroneous, and that there was error in the conviction as to the first count in the indictment.
count alone and leave the verdict to stand as to the second count unaffected by the reversal.
"That whenever any writ of error shall be brought upon any judgment on any indictment, information, presentment, or inquisition in any criminal case and the court of error shall reverse the judgment, it shall be competent for such court of error either to pronounce the proper judgment or to remit the record to the court below, in order that such court may pronounce the proper judgment upon such indictment, information, presentment, or inquisition."
In order to save all doubt on the subject, so also in the several states statutes have been adopted expressly conferring upon reviewing courts authority upon reversal to remand the cause to the lower court with such directions for further proceedings as would promote substantial justice.
are uncertain, in which case they shall remand the same for a final decision."
"in the same manner and under the same regulations, and the writ shall have the same effect as if the judgment or decree complained of had been rendered or passed in a circuit court, and the proceeding upon reversal shall also be the same, except that the Supreme Court, instead of remanding the cause for a final decision, . . . may, at their discretion, if the cause shall have been once remanded before, proceed to a final decision of the same and award execution."
Under the power thus conferred, it has never been questioned that this Court possessed authority upon reversal for error of a final judgment to award a new trial. The recognition of this right involves necessarily a denial of the principle upon which the case of Rex v. Bourne proceeded. As we have seen, the postulate upon which that case rested was the absence of power to render such judgment or order as the ends of justice might require, because of the want of authority to do anything else but determine the existence of the error complained of. It is clear that, by section 24 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, power was conferred upon the circuit courts, when reviewing the judgments or decrees of district courts, to render such judgment or pass such decree as the district court should have rendered or passed, and that upon this Court was conferred the same power. True, at the time the Judiciary Act was passed, no jurisdiction to review final judgments in criminal cases was vested in circuit courts or in this Court except in cases of error to courts of last resort of a state, but, as the power on writs of error to state courts embraced criminal cases, it could not have been contemplated that the general grant of authority on such writs to render the judgment required by the justice of the case was restricted to civil cases alone. The subsequent statutes add cogency to the view that this was not contemplated.
Stat. 196, provided that the appellate court (referring to this Court and circuit courts) may affirm, modify, or reverse the judgment, decree, or order brought before it for review, or may direct such judgment, decree, or order to be rendered, or such further proceedings to be had by the inferior court, as the justice of the case may require.
"The Supreme Court may affirm, modify, or reverse any judgment, decree, or order of a circuit court, or district court acting as a circuit court, or of a district court in prize causes, lawfully brought before it for review, or may direct such judgment, decree, or order to be rendered, or such further proceedings to be had by the inferior court as the justice of the case may require."
"May be reexamined and reversed or affirmed in the Supreme Court upon a writ of error. The writ shall have the same effect as if the judgment or decree complained of had been rendered or passed in a court of the United States."
"The Supreme Court may reverse, modify, or affirm the judgment or decree of such state court, and may at their discretion, award execution, or remand the same to the court from which it was removed by the writ."
to pronounce final sentence, and to award execution thereon, but if such judgment shall be reversed, the circuit court may proceed with the trial of said cause de novo, or remand the same to the district court for further proceedings."
"When any such judgment shall be either reversed or affirmed, the cause shall be remanded to the court from whence it came for further proceedings in accordance with the decision of the Supreme Court, and the court to which such cause is so remanded shall have power to cause such judgment of the Supreme Court to be carried into execution."
By the Act of March 3, 1891, c. 517, 26 Stat. 826, jurisdiction was conferred upon this Court "in cases of conviction of a capital or otherwise infamous crime," and jurisdiction was conferred in other criminal cases upon the circuit courts of appeals established by that act.
"And all provisions of law now in force regulating the methods and systems of review through appeals or writs of error shall regulate the methods and system of appeals and writs of error provided for in this act, in respect of the circuit courts of appeals, including all provisions for bonds or other securities to be required and taken on such appeals and writs of error."
provisions, and that a like power was conferred upon the circuit courts of appeals and circuit courts in cases where they exercised jurisdiction by error in criminal cases over the district court.
"As to the methods and systems of review, through appeals and writs of error, including the citation, supersedeas, and bond or other security, in cases, either civil or criminal, brought to this Court from the circuit court or the district court, Congress made no provision in this act, evidently considering those matters to be covered and regulated by the provisions of earlier statutes forming parts of one system."

References: § 882
 § 4786
 § 4
 § 4786
 § 4
 § 467
 § 201
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