Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/276/226/case.html
Timestamp: 2016-05-04 04:19:06
Document Index: 353222116

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 3450', '§ 26', '§ 3450', '§ 26', '§ 26', '§ 26', '§ 26', '§ 3450']

Commercial Credit Co. v. United States :: 276 U.S. 226 (1928) :: Justia U.S. Supreme Court Center Log In
› Commercial Credit Co. v. United States
Commercial Credit Co. v. United States 276 U.S. 226 (1928)
U.S. Supreme CourtCommercial Credit Co. v. United States, 276 U.S. 226 (1928)Commercial Credit Company v. United StatesNo. 258Argued November 21, 22, 1927Decided February 20, 1928276 U.S. 226CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS
Certiorari, 275 U.S. 511, to a judgment of the circuit court of appeals which affirmed a decree of the district court forfeiting a motor vehicle under § 3450 of the Revised Statutes upon the ground that it had been used Page 276 U. S. 227 in the removal, deposit, and concealment of intoxicating liquor with intent to defraud the United States of the tax thereon. The present petitioner intervened in the libel proceedings to assert its title to the car. Page 276 U. S. 228
By stipulation of the parties, the case was heard by the District Judge without the intervention of a jury. The evidence showed that, in October, a customs inspector who, in consequence of reports that this car was being used to distribute Canadian liquor about the City of Seattle, had Page 276 U. S. 229 watched its movements for some days discovered one Campbell, who had purchased the car under a conditional sale, in the act of backing the car out of an alley in the rear of his house, stopped the car, searched it, found that it contained thirteen quarts of whisky and gin, arrested Campbell, and seized the car. The liquor bore labels indicating that it was of foreign manufacture, and there were no stamps on the bottles showing the payment of duty or internal revenue taxes. It was also stipulated at the hearing that Campbell was prosecuted in the district court under the National Prohibition Act [Footnote 2] on the charges of
The petition for the writ of certiorari was based solely on the ground that, under § 26 of the Prohibition Act, the Page 276 U. S. 230 government was barred from proceeding to forfeit the car under § 3450, and no other question will be considered. Alice state Bank v. Houston Pasture Co., 247 U. S. 240, 247 U. S. 242; Webster Co. v. Splitdorf Co., 264 U. S. 463, 264 U. S. 464; Steele, Executor v. Drummond, 275 U. S. 199.
"When the Commissioner, his assistants, inspectors, or any officer of the law shall discover any person in the act of transporting in violation of the law, intoxicating liquors in any wagon, buggy, automobile, water or air craft, or other vehicle, it shall be his duty to seize any and all intoxicating liquors found therein being transported contrary to law. Whenever intoxicating liquors transported or possessed illegally shall be seized by an officer, he shall take possession of the vehicle . . . and shall arrest any person in charge thereof. Such officer shall at once proceed against the person arrested under the provisions of this title in any court having competent jurisdiction; but the said vehicle or conveyance shall be returned to the owner upon execution by him of a good and valid bond . . . approved by said officer and . . . conditioned to return said property to the custody of said officer on the day of trial to abide the judgment of the court. The court, upon conviction of the person so arrested . . . , unless good cause to the contrary is shown by the owner, shall order a sale by public auction of the property seized, and the officer making the sale, after deducting the expenses of keeping the property, the fee for the seizure, and the cost of the sale, shall pay all liens, according to their priorities, which are established, by intervention or otherwise at said hearing or in other proceeding brought for said purpose, as being bona fide and as having been created without the lienor's having any notice that the carrying vehicle was being used or was to be used for illegal transportation of liquor, and shall pay the balance of the proceeds into the Treasury of the United States as miscellaneous receipts. "Page 276 U. S. 231
and on that assumption the arguments have been largely directed to the question whether, whenever an officer discovers a person in the act of transporting intoxicating liquor in a vehicle, the provisions of § 26 become mandatory in such sense as to furnish the exclusive remedy for the forfeiture Page 276 U. S. 232 of the vehicle. [Footnote 4] But, since it appears that the officer in fact seized the vehicle and arrested Campbell, who was in fact proceeded against under the Prohibition Act, the question of the officer's duty to proceed under § 26 is not here involved.
Campbell's conviction on the charge of such possession, following his arrest when discovered in the act of transportation, required, we think, a disposition of the car under the provisions of § 26. That section, read in its entirety, governs the disposition of the car where the Page 276 U. S. 233 person in charge of the vehicle is convicted of the unlawful possession incidental to the transportation, as well as where he is convicted of the unlawful transportation itself . Therefore, under the doctrine of the Port Gardner Co. case, the disposition of the car under § 26 becoming mandatory after Campbell's conviction, "and being inconsistent with the disposition under § 3450, necessarily precluded resort to proceedings under the latter section."