Source: http://www.ecases.us/case/scotus/c104316/pinkerton-v-united-states
Timestamp: 2020-08-08 17:04:08
Document Index: 779915858

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 37', '§ 88', '§ 88', '§ 37', '§ 88', '§ 88', '§ 3321', '§ 3321', '§ 3321']

Pinkerton v. United States, United States Supreme Court, Supreme Court, Federal Courts, COURT CASE
66 S. Ct. 1180
90 L. Ed. 1489
See 67 S. Ct. 26.
Walter and Daniel Pinkerton are brothers who live a short distance from each other on Daniel's farm. They were indicted for violations of the Internal Revenue Code. The indictment contained ten substantive counts and one conspiracy count. The jury found Walter guilty on nine of the substantive counts and on the conspiracy count. It found Daniel guilty on six of the substantive counts and on the conspiracy count. Walter was fined $500 and sentenced generally on the substantive counts to imprisonment for thirty months. On the conspiracy count he was given a two year sentence to run concurrently with the other sentence. Daniel was fined $1,000 and sentenced generally on the substantive counts to imprisonment for thirty months. On the conspiracy count he was fined $500 and given a two year sentence to run concurrently with the other sentence. The judgments of conviction were affirmed by the Circuit Court of Appeals.1 151 F.2d 499. The case is here on a petition for a writ of certiorari which we granted, 66 S. Ct. 702, because one of the questions presented involved a conflict between the decision below and United States v. Sall, 116 F.2d 745, decided by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.
A single conspiracy was charged and proved. Some of the overt acts charged in the conspiracy count were the same acts charged in the substantive counts. Each of the substantive offenses found was committed pursuant to the conspiracy. Petitioners therefore contend that the substantive counts became merged in the conspiracy count, and that only a single sentence not exceeding the maximum two-year penalty provided by the conspiracy statute (Criminal Code § 37, 18 U.S.C. § 88, 18 U.S.C.A. § 88) could be imposed. Or to state the matter differently, they contend that each of the substantive counts became a separate conspiracy count but since only a single conpsiracy was charged and proved, only single sentence for conspiracy could be imposed. They rely on Braverman v. United States, 317 U.S. 49, 63 S. Ct. 99, 87 L. Ed. 23.
Nor can we accept the proposition that the substantive offenses were merged in the conspiracy. There are, of course, instances where a conspiracy charge may not be added to the substantive charge. One is where the agreement of two persons is necessary for the completion of the substantive crime and there is no ingredient in the conspiracy which is not present in the completed crime. See United States v. Katz, 271 U.S. 354, 355, 356, 46 S. Ct. 513, 514, 70 L. Ed. 986; Gebardi v. United States, 287 U.S. 112, 121, 122, 53 S. Ct. 35, 37, 77 L. Ed. 206, 87 A.L.R. 370. Another is where the definition of the substantive offense excludes from punishment for conspiracy one who voluntarily participates in another's crime. Gebardi v. United States, supra. But those exceptions are of a limited character. The common law rule that the substantive offense, if a felony, was merged in the conspiracy,2 has little vitality in this country.3 It has been long and consistently recognized by the Court that the commission of the substantive offense and a conspiracy to commit it are separate and distinct offenses. The power of Congress to separate the two and to affix to each a different penalty is well established. Clune v. United States, 159 U.S. 590, 594, 595, 16 S. Ct. 125, 126, 40 L. Ed. 269. A conviction for the conspiracy may be had though the substantive offense was completed. See Heike v. United States, 227 U.S. 131, 144, 33 S. Ct. 226, 228, 57 L. Ed. 450, Ann.Cas.1914C, 128. And the plea of double jeopardy is no defense to a conviction for both offenses. Carter v. McClaughry, 183 U.S. 365, 395, 22 S. Ct. 181, 193, 46 L. Ed. 236. It is only an identity of offenses which is fatal. See Gavieres v. United States, 220 U.S. 338, 342, 31 S. Ct. 421, 422, 55 L. Ed. 489. Cf. Freeman v. United States, 6 Cir., 146 F.2d 978. A conspiracy is a partnership in crime. United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 310 U.S. 150, 253, 60 S. Ct. 811, 858, 84 L. Ed. 1129. It has ingredients, as well as implications, distinct from the completion of the unlawful project. As stated in United States v. Rabinowich, 238 U.S. 78, 88, 35 S. Ct. 682, 684, 685, 59 L. Ed. 1211:
We take a different view. We have here a continuous conspiracy. There is here no evidence of the affirmative action on the part of Daniel which is necessary to establish his withdrawal from it. Hyde v. United States, 225 U.S. 347, 369, 32 S. Ct. 793, 803, 56 L. Ed. 1114, Ann.Cas.1914A, 614. As stated in that case, 'having joined in an unlawful scheme, having constituted agents for its performance, scheme and agency to be continuous until full fruition be secured, until he does some act to disavow or defeat the purpose he is in no situation to claim the delay of the law. As the offense has not been terminated or accomplished, he is still offending. And we think, consciously offending,—offending as certainly, as we have said, as at the first moment of his confederation, and consciously through every moment of its existence.' Id., 225 U.S. at page 369, 32 S.Ct. at page 803. And so long as the partnership in crime continues, the partners act for each other in carrying it forward. It is settled that 'an overt act of one partner may be the act of all without any new agreement specifically directed to that act.' United States v. Kissel, 218 U.S. 601, 608, 31 S. Ct. 124, 126, 54 L. Ed. 1168. Motive or intent may be proved by the acts or declarations of some of the conspirators in furtherance of the common objective. Wiborg v. United States, 163 U.S. 632, 657, 658, 16 S. Ct. 1127, 1137, 1197, 46 L. Ed. 289. A scheme to use the mails to defraud, which is joined in by more than one person, is a conspiracy. Cochran v. United States, 8 Cir., 41 F.2d 193, 199, 200. Yet all members are responsible, though only one did the mailing. Cochran v. United States, supra; Mackett v. United States, 7 Cir., 90 F.2d 462, 464; Baker v. United States, 8 Cir., 115 F.2d 533, 540; Blue v. United States, 6 Cir., 138 F.2d 351, 359. The governing principle is the same when the substantive offense is committed by one of the conspirators in furtherance of the unlawful project. Johnson v. United States, 9 Cir., 62 F.2d 32, 34. The criminal intent to do the act is established by the formation of the conspiracy. Each conspirator instigated the commission of the crime. The unlawful agreement contemplated precisely what was done. It was formed for the purpose. The act done was in execution of the enterprise. The rule which holds responsible one who counsels, procures, or commands another to commit a crime is founded on the same principle. That principle is recognized in the law of conspiracy when the overt act of one partner in crime is attributable to all. An overt act is an essential ingredient of the crime of conspiracy under § 37 of the Criminal Code, 18 U.S.C. § 88, 18 U.S.C.A. § 88. If that can be supplied by the act of one conspirator, we fail to see why the same or other acts in furtherance of the conspiracy are likewise not attributable to the others for the purpose of holding them responsible for the substantive offense.
The three types of offense are not identical. Bollehbach v. United States, 326 U.S. 607, 611, 66 S. Ct. 402, 404; United States v. Sall, 3 Cir., 116 F.2d 745. Nor are their differences merely verbal. Ibid. The gist of conspiracy is the agreement; that of aiding, abetting or counseling is in consciously advising or assisting another to commit particular offenses, and thus becoming a party to them; that of substantice crime, going a step beyond mere aiding, abetting, counseling to completion of the offense.
The old doctrine of merger of conspiracy in the substantive crime has not obtained here. But the dangers for abuse, which in part it sought to avoid, in applying the law of conspiracy have not altogether disappeared. Cf. Kotteakos v. United States, 66 S. Ct. 1239. There is some evidence that they may be increasing. The looseness with which the charge may be proved, the almost unlimited scope of vicarious responsibility for others' acts which follows once agreement is shown, the psychological advantages of such trials for securing convictions by attributing to one proof against another, these and other inducements require that the broad limits of discretion allowed to prosecuting officers in relation to such charges and trials be not expanded into new, wider and more dubious areas of choice. If the matter is not generally of constitutional proportions, it is one for the exercise of this Court's supervisory power over the modes of conducting federal criminal prosecutions within the rule of McNabb v. United States, 318 U.S. 332, 63 S. Ct. 608, 87 L. Ed. 819.
But later, in support of the conviction here, relative to the bearing of the various statutes of limitations upon proof of the acts, charged also as substantive offenses, the Government points out that the earlier indictment was framed on the assumption that a three-year statute of limitations applied to the conspiracy as first charged; and the convictions were reversed for failure of the trial court to instruct the jury on that basis. Then the District Attorney discovered the decision in Braverman v. United States, 317 U.S. 49, 54, 55, 63 S. Ct. 99, 102, 87 L. Ed. 23, and decided to revamp the indictment to include details making the six-year period applicable. He did so, and added the substantive counts because, so it is said, in the view that a six-year period applied he felt there were enough substantive offenses within that time which he could successfully prove to justify including them.
It would seem, from this history, that to sustain this conviction as against the plea of former jeopardy by virtue of the earlier indictment and what followed, the Government stands, and must stand, upon the idea that two separate and distinct conspiracies were charged, one by the first and one by the later indictment. See United States v. Oppenheimer, 242 U.S. 85, 87, 88, 37 S. Ct. 68, 69, 61 L. Ed. 161, 3 L.R.A. 516. But to sustain Daniel's conviction for the substantive offenses, via the conspiracy route, there was only a single continuing conspiracy extending over the longer period, in the course of which Walter committed crimes, which were also overt acts, some of them running back of the period charged in the former indictment, others being the same but later acts which it had charged as overt acts against both.
The court held that two of the counts under which Walter was convicted and one of the counts under which Daniel was convicted were barred by the statute of limitations and that as to them the demurrer should have been sustained. But each of the remaining substantive counts on which the jury had returned a verdict of guilty carried a maximum penalty of three years' imprisonment and a fine of $5,000. Int.Rev.Code, § 3321, 26 U.S.C. § 3321, 26 U.S.C.A. Int.Rev.Code, § 3321. Hence the general sentence of fine and imprisonment imposed on each under the substantive counts was valid. It is settled law, as stated in Claassen v. United States, 142 U.S. 140, 146, 147, 12 S. Ct. 169, 170, 35 L. Ed. 966, 'that in any criminal case a general verdict and judgment on an indictment or information containing several counts cannot be reversed on error if any one of the counts is good, and warrants the judgment, because, in the absence of anything in the record to show the contrary, the presumption of law is that the court awarded sentence on the good count only.'
The same rule obtains in the case of concurrent sentences. Hirabayashi v. United States, 320 U.S. 81, 85, 63 S. Ct. 1375, 1378, 87 L. Ed. 1774, and cases cited.
The situation is essentially the same as when crimes are defined with such minute distinction as to make them different only in the most technical sense. See District of Columbia v. Buckley, 75 U.S.App.D.C. 301, 128 F.2d 17, concurring opinion at page 21; cf. Ex parte Nielsen, 131 U.S. 176, 9 S. Ct. 672, 33 L. Ed. 118; Ex parte Snow, 120 U.S. 274, 7 S. Ct. 556, 30 L. Ed. 658.
Citation Numbers： 328 U.S. 640, 66 S. Ct. 1180, 90 L. Ed. 1489, 1946 U.S. LEXIS 3154
Filed Date： 10/14/1946
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