Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/323/273/
Timestamp: 2019-12-10 10:23:30
Document Index: 306947790

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 682', '§ 2', '§ 41', '§ 878', '§ 656', '§ 504', '§ 338', '§ 103', '§ 3237']

United States v. Johnson :: 323 U.S. 273 (1944) :: Justia US Supreme Court Center
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a State or Territory any denture the cast of which was taken by a person not licensed to practice dentistry in the State into which the denture is sent. An information, filed October 4, 1943, in the District Court for the District of Delaware, charged that appellees put into the mails at Chicago for delivery in Houston, Delaware, dentures in violation of the Delaware laws pertaining to dental practice, and thereby violated the Federal Denture Act. The information was quashed on the ground that prosecution of appellees could only be had where the illegal dentures were deposited. 53 F.Supp. 596. A second information, adding counts alleging transmission into and delivery in Delaware, was quashed by entry of a formal order referring to the court's earlier opinion. * The Government has appealed directly to this Court under the Criminal Appeals Act. 34 Stat. 1246, as amended, 18 U.S.C. § 682 (Supp. 1943).
Must these appellees be tried in the Northern district of Illinois, or may they be tried in the district of any State through which the dentures were carried including Delaware, the place of delivery? Has Congress authorized such discretion in the enforcement of this Act? If it has, there is an end to the matter, for Congress may constitutionally make the practices which led to the Federal Denture Act triable in any federal district through which an offending denture is transported. Armour Packing Co. v.
United States, 209 U. S. 56. An accused is so triable if a fair reading of the Act requires it. But if the enactment reasonably permits the trial of the sender of outlawed dentures to be confined to the district of sending, and that of the importer to the district into which they are brought, such construction should be placed upon the Act. Such construction, while not required by the compulsions of Article III, § 2 of the Constitution and of the Sixth Amendment, is more consonant with the considerations of historic experience and policy which underlie those safeguards in the Constitution regarding the trial of crimes.
It is significant that, when Congress desires to give a choice of trial, it does so by specific venue provisions giving jurisdiction to prosecute in any criminal court of the United States through which a process of wrongdoing moves. Such was the situation in Armour Packing Co. v. United States, supra. The offense there was under the Elkins Act for the transportation of goods at illegal freight rates, and Congress specifically provided for prosecution in any district "through which the transportation may have been conducted." 32 Stat. 847, as amended, 49 U.S.C. § 41(1).
Hearings before Subcommittee of House Committee on Interstate and Foreign Commerce on H.R. 5674, 77th Cong., 2d Sess. (1942), p. 3. And the Committee also invited the viewpoint of representatives of the Department of Justice "on the language of the bill." Id. at 28. In view of the keen awareness of enforcing officials, as well as that of the members of the Committee on Interstate Commerce, of the problems raised by venue in criminal trials, it is inadmissible to suggest either oversight on the part of Congress in failing to make provision for choice of venue or to make the cavalier assumption that that which is specifically provided for in other enactments -- i.e., trial in more than one district -- was authorized but, through parsimony of language, left unexpressed in the Federal Denture Act.
The large policy back of the constitutional safeguards counsels against the unrestricted construction for which the Government contends when Congress has not commanded it, and no considerations of expediency require it. Prosecutions of federal crimes are under the general supervision of the Attorney General of the United States; United States Attorneys do not exercise autonomous authority. The vindication of the Federal Denture Act therefore does not depend upon the willingness of some local United States Attorney to prosecute on behalf of a local victim. While it might facilitate the Government's prosecution in a case like this to have its witnesses near the place of trial, there must be balanced against the inconvenience of transporting the Government's witnesses to trial at the place of the sender the serious hardship of defending prosecutions in places remote from home (including the accused's difficulties, financial and otherwise, see R.S. § 878, 28 U.S.C. § 656, of marshalling his witnesses), as well as the temptation to abuses, already referred to, in the administration of criminal justice. Inasmuch as the statute permits and does not forbid this construction, the judgment below should be
The venue of a crime may be fixed at any place where the acts denounced as crimes occur. [Footnote 1] There is no disagreement as to this rule of law. The Court reaches its conclusion upon venue under the Federal Denture Act not upon any compulsion of Constitution or statute, but because a restriction of the venue to the place of mailing seemed to it more consonant with the underlying purposes of the Constitutional provisions as to venue. These purposes are thought, as the Court expresses it, to include a trial in an environment which is not alien to the accused.
a trial in the place where the crime is committed, and not to be concerned with the domicile of the criminal nor with his familiarity with the environment of the place of trial. Haas v. Henkel, 216 U. S. 462. Indeed, in the present information, nothing appears as to residence or domicile of the accused or as to their place of business.
The "use" for the "purpose" results in a continuous offense. [Footnote 2] Since the offense is committed wherever the mails or the instrumentalities of interstate commerce are used for the purpose of sending or bringing the denture into a state contrary to the statute, and the act has no provision otherwise limiting the place of trial, the venue is at whatever
place these acts are committed. One of the places in the present case is Delaware, "into" which the dentures were brought by appellees' use of the mails in that state. [Footnote 3] If this analysis is correct, there was no occasion for Congress to follow the suggestion as to venue of the Postmaster General to which the Court refers.
The title of the act indicates that it is directed at practices thought to lead to dental disorders and "to prevent the circumvention of certain State or Territorial laws regulating the practice of dentistry." 56 Stat. 1087. These state laws regulated the fabrication of prosthetic dental appliances. From the hearings, [Footnote 4] it is clear that the purpose of Congress was to protect the public against the evils of ill fitting dental appliances by restricting interstate commerce to dental appliances which were approved by licensed practitioners of the state into which the appliances were brought. Such was declared to be its purpose by the report of the Senate Committee. S.Rep. No. 1779, 77th Cong., 2d Sess., p. 1. As the injury would occur normally at the place of delivery, and as the act is designed to protect only those states which have laws regulating the furnishing of appliances by unlicensed practitioners, Congress would naturally enact legislation which might punish violations in the state of delivery.
The prosecuting officers of that state would be most interested in enforcement and would best understand the scope of the laws of the state of delivery. Congress would not wish to leave immune shipments from foreign countries. Cf. United States v. Freeman, 239 U. S. 117.
Constitution of the United States, Art. III, Sec. 2, cl. 3; Sixth Amendment. Armour Packing Co. v. United States, 209 U. S. 56, 209 U. S. 73-77; Salinger v. Loisel, 265 U. S. 224, 265 U. S. 232-235; Horner v. United States, No. 1, 143 U. S. 207, 143 U. S. 213; In re Palliser, 136 U. S. 257, 136 U. S. 265; Hyde v. Shine, 199 U. S. 62, 199 U. S. 78; Haas v. Henkel, 216 U. S. 462, 216 U. S. 473.
Cf. United States v. Kissel, 218 U. S. 601; Hyde v. United States, 225 U. S. 347, 225 U. S. 360-367; United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U. S. 150, 310 U. S. 250; In re Snow, 120 U. S. 274; Clark & Marshall, Crimes (4th Ed.), § 504; Wharton Criminal Law (12th Ed.), § 338. See also In re Richter, 100 F. 295, 298; Morris v. United States, 229 F. 516, 521.
Cf. Armour Packing Co. v. United States, 209 U. S. 56, 209 U. S. 72-74; United States v. Midstate Co., 306 U. S. 161, 306 U. S. 165, and see United States v. Lombardo, 241 U. S. 73, 241 U. S. 77; United States v. Freeman, 239 U. S. 117, and In re Palliser, 136 U. S. 257. The latter two cases illustrate the difference between a continuous offense and one begun in one state and completed in another. Compare Judicial Code, Section 42, 28 U.S.C. § 103, with § 3237 of H.R. 5450, 78th Cong., 2d Sess.