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Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 41', '§ 42', '§ 256', '§ 402', '§ 468', '§ 3', '§ 5391', '§ 289']

JOHNSON V. YELLOW CAB TRANSIT CO., 321 U. S. 383 (1944) - US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE
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137 F.2d 274 affirmed. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The carrier filed a complaint in the federal District Court alleging that the seizure constituted an unlawful interference with its authorized interstate transportation, and praying that the Court order the officials to return the liquors so that it might deliver them to the consignee at Fort Sill. The answer to the complaint, in substance, admitted the material facts relative to the shipment and seizure of the liquors, but denied the allegation of the complaint that the seizure was unlawful. The answer did not allege that judicial proceedings concerning the seized liquor were pending, or were to be commenced, in an chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Petitioners do not claim, nor could they claim, that either of these two separate questions should be decided in their favor on the ground that Oklahoma has power to control liquor transactions on the Fort Sill Reservation. With certain minor exceptions not here material, Oklahoma ceded to the United States in 1913 whatever authority it ever could have exercised in the Reservation. [Footnote 1] The Oklahoma Supreme Court has recognized that the general power to govern the Fort Sill area is vested in the United States, not in Oklahoma, [Footnote 2] and our decisions lead to the same conclusion. [Footnote 3] chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Okla.Stat. 1941, Title 37, § 41. The argument is that the Oklahoma legislature intended this statute to apply to liquor imported into the Fort Sill Reservation because the latter is located within the exterior boundaries of Oklahoma. Were this statute intended to do no more than provide a means whereby the state could protect itself from illegal liquor diversions within the area which Oklahoma has power to govern, the interpretation asked might well be an acceptable one. Duckworth v. Arkansas, 314 U. S. 390; Carter v. Virginia, 321 U. S. 131. But the statute has no such limited purpose. No permit to transport liquor into Oklahoma can be obtained at all except for scientific, mechanical, medicinal, industrial, or sacramental purposes. Okl.Stat. 1941, Title 37, § 42. To construe the state statute in the manner urged would be to say that, although Oklahoma admittedly has no power directly to regulate the liquor traffic on the Reservation, the Oklahoma legislature intended practically to exclude from the Reservation liquor which might be put to legal uses under controlling United States laws. Neither the words nor chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
We may assume that, because of the clean hands doctrine, a federal court should not, in an ordinary case, lend its judicial power to a plaintiff who seeks to invoke that power for the purpose of consummating a transaction in clear violation of law. [Footnote 4] But this does not mean that courts must always permit a defendant wrongdoer to retain the profits of his wrongdoing merely because the plaintiff himself is possibly guilty of transgressing the law in the transactions involved. [Footnote 5] The maxim that he who comes into equity must come with clean hands is not applied by way of punishment for an unclean litigant, but "upon considerations that make for the advancement of right and justice." Keystone Driller Co. v. General Excavator Co., 290 U. S. 240, 290 U. S. 245. It is not a rigid formula which "trammels the free and just exercise of discretion." Ibid., 290 U. S. 245-246. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Petitioners next argue that the liquor transactions here involved were in violation of the assimilative crimes statute. [Footnote 7] This statute, it is said, adopts all of the various chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
penal statutes of Oklahoma relating to liquor and makes them the federal law applicable to the Fort Sill Reservation. Cf. United States v. Press Publishing Co., 219 U. S. 1; Franklin v. United States, 216 U. S. 559. Petitioners' argument as to the applicability of the assimilative crimes statute raises at least three distinct questions, no one of which is easily resolved: (1) which, if any, of the Oklahoma penal statutes are so designed that they could be adopted by the assimilative crimes statute and applied to Fort Sill? [Footnote 8] See opinions of Circuit Court of Appeals, supra; cf. Murray v. Joe Gerrick & Co., 291 U. S. 315. (2) If there are Oklahoma statutes which could be so adopted, are chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Considering the difficulty and importance of a correct decision of the novel issues which an attempt to construe this federal criminal statute would present, together with the other circumstances of the present case, we are convinced that, in the interest of sound administration of justice, we should refrain from a complete exploration of these issues in this proceeding, especially since these issues chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Nor is it any answer to say that the carrier should be compelled to sue in the Oklahoma state courts to reclaim the liquors in order to give the Oklahoma courts the opportunity collaterally to pass upon the question of whether these liquor transactions violate the federal assimilative crimes statute. That broad question, though some parts of it involve a consideration of the proper scope of the state law adopted by the federal government, is, in the final analysis, a question of the correct interpretation of a federal criminal statute, and therefore an issue upon which federal courts are not bound by the rulings of state courts. Puerto Rico v. Shell Co., 302 U. S. 253, 302 U. S. 266. Indeed, Congress has vested in the federal courts exclusive jurisdiction over the trial of all federal crimes. Judicial Code § 256 as amended. And so, even if the carrier chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
If the carrier's delivery of these liquors on the Fort Sill Reservation would violate any federal law, federal agencies chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
See generally 2 Pomeroy's Equity Jurisprudence, 5th Ed., §§ 402, 403. Cf. Bentley v. Tibbals, 223 F.2d 7, 252; Bonnie & Co. v. Bonnie Bros., 160 Ky. 487, 495, 169 S.W. 871.
See, e.g., 43 U. S. 293; Stark v. Grant, 16 N.Y.S. 526; Martin v. Hodge,@ 47 Ark. 378, 1 S.W. 694.
The ultimate issue in this case is whether a federal court should, by issuing an injunction, aid in the consummation of what appears to be a violation of the Criminal Code of the United States. For it must not be forgotten that a mandatory injunction, the relief sought in this suit, "is chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The facts establish that which was done, if it had been done in Oklahoma proper, would, under its laws, have constituted a misdemeanor. Delivery of the liquor on the Reservation would therefore be an offense under the federal criminal law by virtue of the Act of June 6th, 1940, 54 Stat. 234, whereby Congress made applicable to the Reservation the penal laws of Oklahoma in existence on February 1, 1940, 18 U.S.C. § 468. But even if there were doubt that the importation of the liquor into the Reservation under the circumstances of this record would offend the Criminal Code of the United States, on the ground that the act if committed within the jurisdiction of Oklahoma "by the laws thereof in force on February 1, 1940, . . . would be penal," equity should resolve the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
137 F.2d 279. Judge Murrah calls specific attention to an Oklahoma statute which makes it a misdemeanor
The opinion of Judge Phillips recognizes that this Act of 1917 penalizes the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
transaction before us within Oklahoma, but rejects its bearing when a federal court is asked to grant an injunction involving this law by suggesting that this statute is "unconstitutional." He bases this suggestion on the argument that, inasmuch as the Oklahoma Supreme Court has held that a statute making mere possession of over one quart of spirituous liquors unlawful is not "a reasonable exercise of the police powers," and therefore beyond the power of the legislature to make unlawful, Ex parte Wilson, 6 Okl.Cr. 451, 475, 119 P. 596, 606, "it must likewise be beyond its power to make unlawful the possession of intoxicating liquor for personal use received from a common carrier." 137 F.2d 277. [Footnote 2/2] In other words, it is argued that, because the Oklahoma Supreme Court held that the mere possession of liquor cannot be made a crime by Oklahoma, Oklahoma cannot prohibit the receipt of liquor from a carrier. On such reasoning, a law that has been on the Oklahoma statute books for more than twenty-five years, and during that period actively enforced and never questioned, is thrown into discard when a federal court is asked to exercise its duty of discretion in granting the extraordinary relief of an injunction. I am unable to follow such reasoning, because Oklahoma law makes it baseless. The validity of this provision, as already indicated, has been taken for granted by the Oklahoma courts. It was the subject of litigation in De Hasque v. Atchison, T. & S.F. R. Co., 68 Okl. 183, 173 P. 73, and Crossland v. State, 74 Okl. 58, 176 P. 944, and a conviction under this Section was sustained chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
But the shipment of liquor in controversy was for delivery on the Fort Sill Reservation -- that is, a place within the physical boundaries of Oklahoma but beyond its jurisdiction. It was stipulated between the parties that the purpose of the suit was to enable the Transit Company to transport and deliver the shipment to its destination in the Reservation. Such was the basis of the District Court's decree requiring the return of the shipment and enjoining interference with "delivery of said shipment to its destination," and no place else. This brings us to the second half of the question in this case: may the Transit Company, according to the law that rules such matters on the Reservation, lawfully deliver this liquor at Fort Sill? Of course, all transactions on the Reservation are subject to regulation by Congress. Constitution, Art. IV, §§ 3, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
par. 2; see Collins v. Yosemite Park Co., 304 U. S. 518; Penn Dairies v. Milk Control Comm'n, 318 U. S. 261; Pacific Coast Dairy v. Department of Agriculture, 318 U. S. 285. If it chooses, Congress may provide a rule of law which runs counter to the expressed dry policy of Oklahoma, and it may do so either specifically for Fort Sill or generally for all federal reservations. Congress has not done so. It has done the opposite. For more than a hundred years, most of the rules of life on national reservations have been controlled by the laws of the States in which these reservations are located. By the Act of March 3, 1825, 4 Stat. 115, Congress provided that, when something is done on a federal reservation which is not made penal by the laws of Congress but which, under State law, if the State had jurisdiction, would be punishable, the act should be equally punished as wrongful if committed on the reservation. In thus adopting the penal laws of the States as its code for lawful conduct on federal reservations within the States, Congress did not give to the States a free hand to impose the continuing process of State lawmaking on places over which the United States has jurisdiction. Only the laws of the States existing at the time when the Act of March 3, 1825, was enacted became operative on the reservations. United States v. Paul, 6 Pet. 141. And so, in view of the inevitable modifications and additions in the penal laws of the States, Congress has accommodated its adoption of those state laws, as the governing federal law, by bringing up to date from time to time its adoption for enforcement on federal reservations of the policies of the States which have penal sanctions. Accordingly, the Act of March 3, 1825, was in substance reenacted on April 5, 1866, 14 Stat. 12, 13, was carried forward in § 5391 of the Revised Statutes of 1878, was again reenacted on July 7, 1898, 30 Stat. 717, and became § 289 of the Federal Penal Code of 1910, 35 Stat. 1088, 1145. Since then, and in relatively quick succession, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Act of February 2, chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Even if there were more hypothetical doubt than the laws and decisions of Oklahoma make manifest as to the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
In my view, therefore, it was an inequitable exercise of discretion to issue this injunction. Of course, "Equity does not demand that its suitors shall have led blameless lives." Loughran v. Loughran, 292 U. S. 216, 292 U. S. 229. But where the relief sought is not as to something past and collateral, but where it is the very means, as is the case here, for completing an outlawed transaction, a court of equity should withhold its aid, and not become the promoter of wrongdoing. The possible illegality of the seizure chanroblesvirtualawlibrary