Source: http://www.chanrobles.com/usa/us_supremecourt/336/613/case.php
Timestamp: 2019-07-23 12:06:30
Document Index: 755624210

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 37', '§ 88', '§ 371', '§ 35', '§ 80', '§ 1001']

NYE & NISSEN V. UNITED STATES, 336 U. S. 613 (1949) - US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS ON-LINE
(c) The fact that, as to substantive offenses charged, a case might conceivably be submitted to the jury on either the conspiracy chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Nye & Nissen is a corporation which, during the years covered by the indictment, was engaged in the business of purchasing and selling eggs, butter, and cheese in San Francisco. Throughout this period, Moncharsh was president of the corporation, one of its directors, and the owner of one-third of the stock of the holding company which had sole ownership of Nye & Nissen. Moncharsh's mother owned a one-third interest in the holding company, while the other third was owned by one Baum, who lived in New York. Berman and Goddard were brothers-in-law of Moncharsh -- the former being city sales manager of Nye & Nissen in charge of the company's chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
An indictment in seven counts was returned on June 20, 1945, against Nye & Nissen, Moncharsh, Berman, Goddard, and Menges. The first count charged the defendants with having conspired to defraud the United States from 1938 to 1945, in violation of § 37 of the Criminal Code, 18 U.S.C. § 88, [Footnote 1] now § 371, by designated fraudulent practices to which we will refer. The other six counts charged the defendants with violations of § 35 of the Criminal Code, 18 U.S.C. § 80, [Footnote 2] now § 1001, by misrepresenting chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Two preliminary questions are presented. It is argued in the first place that there was a variance prejudicial to Moncharsh between the conspiracy charged and the proof, in that the evidence tended to show the existence of two separate conspiracies of different characters and involving different persons. The contention is that the conspiracy charged was a continuing one from 1938 to 1945, and involved the circumvention of the Government's inspection system with relation to the sale of eggs. It is said that the proof showed two separate and distinct conspiracies -- the first embracing Berman, Goddard, Moncharsh, and Menges in an undertaking to defraud the United States by impeding and impairing the chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Government's inspection system with relation to the sales of eggs to the Army and Navy from 1938 to 1942; the second embracing Berman and Goddard alone in an agreement in 1943 and 1944 to file false vouchers with the War Shipping Administration. We need not take the space to relate why, under that theory, Moncharsh is said to have been prejudiced, because the argument that there was a variance seems to us to lack merit. The case was submitted to the jury on the basis of a single conspiracy throughout the period alleged in the indictment. That was proper, for, as we read the indictment, it charged a single conspiracy to defraud the United States in various ways: by grading and selling to agencies of the Government inferior products through frauds practiced upon its inspectors and representatives; by impeding and defeating the functions of government agencies in the inspection, grading, weighing, and purchase of eggs, butter, and cheese; by utilizing various schemes to circumvent and avoid the standards, grades, weights, and specifications to which the orders were subject, and by misrepresenting the grade, weight, and price of eggs, butter, and cheese. The fact that certain types of fraudulent practices occurred during one period, and other types at different periods, is without significance. The circumvention of the inspection system and the presentation of false invoices were part and parcel of the same conspiracy as charged and proved. There was an abundance of evidence, as the Court of Appeals held, from which the jury could conclude that there was one continuous and persistent conspiracy to defraud. It is conceivable that the jury might conclude that, beginning in 1943 or thereabouts, Moncharsh severed himself from the conspiracy, and that his subordinates carried it forward on their own. But we could not reverse them if that theory taxed their credulity. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
That theory is well engrained in the law. See chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
We see, therefore, no reason to exculpate him as an aider and abettor. There was no inadequacy in the charge to the jury on that theory. Nor was the submission in conflict chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Moncharsh, with the other defendants, was indicted on seven counts. The first count charged conspiracy to defraud the United States. The other six counts charged the presentation of false invoices to the War Shipping Administration. The trial court correctly instructed the jury as to the findings necessary to support a conviction of guilty on the conspiracy count; it also correctly defined what is necessary to conclude that the defendant had aided and abetted commission of the substantive crimes charged in the remaining counts. On April 6, 1946, the jury found Moncharsh guilty as charged on all counts. He appealed, challenging, inter alia, the sufficiency of the evidence as to each. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The Court thus recognizes that the Pinkerton doctrine is available only if (1) there is a connection between the conduct of the conspiracy and the commission of the substantive offenses, and (2) the jury has been instructed that evidence establishing guilt of conspiracy cannot be used as a basis for conviction upon the substantive counts unless it has found the necessary connection to exist. The importance of these requirements lies in this: only when a jury has been properly instructed as to the relevant standards to be applied to the evidence does a basis exist for determining whether evidence sufficient to support the verdict was presented to it. See Bollenbach v. United States, 326 U. S. 607, 326 U. S. 613-615. The chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
It may well be that the record supports the jury's finding of guilt on the substantive counts. But that question can be answered only by facing petitioner's challenge to the insufficiency of the evidence. This challenge is hardly met by examining bits and pieces of the record, or by reliance on atmospheric emanations of guilt. The whole record must be canvassed, and the state of this Court's business precludes such an undertaking. It is a task especially to be avoided in view of the provision of the Evarts Act of 1891, underlined by the Judiciary Act of 1925, making criminal appeals final in the Courts of Appeals, reserving to this Court to grant further review in those rare instances where a serious issue of law or a chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
conflict between the Courts of Appeals presents an issue of true public importance. The question of evidentiary sufficiency here at issue exemplifies precisely those burdensome features which led Congress to free this Court from such a wasteful responsibility. The record comprises twelve volumes, including 4,630 pages. It is not conceivable that the case would have been brought here for the purpose of canvassing such a record. We should not now undertake the task merely because the need to do so is unexpectedly presented, nor do we contribute to sound judicial administration by adopting a conclusion, on a necessarily partial examination of the record, which the Court of Appeals itself, though it must have examined the record, refrained from adopting. * Our duty is chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The instruction given in the Pinkerton case was needed to inform the jury of the conditions under which they might use a finding that the defendants were guilty of conspiracy as circumstantial evidence of guilt of the substantive offenses. An instruction as to aiding and abetting serves no such function, for it leaves wholly at large chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
Clarity as to the ground on which a criminal conviction is sustained is indispensable to Anglo-American notions of criminal justice; it is no less indispensable for the guidance of district courts in future prosecutions for conspiracy. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
United States v. Kissel, 173 F.8d 3, 828. chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
168 F.2d 854.
Later in the analysis of the conspiracy count, a definition of "abetting" was given. It was immediately followed by this statement: "In this connection," the acts and declarations chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
The policy which required cautions in the Pinkerton case requires the same cautions here. This voluminous chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
An appellate court has no business deciding for itself that there is sufficient evidence to convict, when the triers of fact may have considered improper evidence their chanroblesvirtualawlibrary
basis for the finding of guilt. The presence of proper evidence has no relevance whatever. At the very least, the judge should instruct the jury that there is a difference between the real participation contemplated in aiding or abetting and the more remote plotting embraced by simple "conspiracy," United States v. Peoni, supra, 100 F.2d 402, although one may be both conspirator and abettor.