Opinion ID: 272895
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Objections with respect to venue.

Text: 31 We deal here with objections to venue which are urged to require dismissal of three substantive counts of receiving stolen stamps or aiding and abetting their receipt-- Counts 4 and 5 directed at Bozza, and Count 26 directed at DeLutro as principal, and Jones, Mulhearn and Pizzo as aiders and abettors. It will be convenient to begin with Count 26. 32 The only acts shown to have occurred in the Eastern District of New York with respect to this count were DeLutro's making and receiving telephone calls on a visit to Brooklyn for an unspecified purpose, during which he agreed to buy the stamps stolen from Hillsdale and bargained about the price, and his driving from the point of the call to Manhattan to receive them. The Government relies on the continuing offense statute, 18 U.S.C. 3237(a), which states: 33 Except as otherwise expressly provided by enactment of Congress, any offense against the United States begun in one district and completed in another, or committed in more than one district, may be inquired of and prosecuted in any district in which such offense was begun, continued, or completed. 34 Appellants say that the offense of receiving stolen Government property, 18 U.S.C. 641, does not begin until receipt and that the proof showed any receipt of the stamps by DeLutro was in the Southern District of New York. 35 It is arguable, as the Government urges, that no violence is done to the normal use of language by regarding the making of a contract to receive as the 'beginning' of a receiving, and we entertain no doubt that Congress could so provide. But the cases draw a distinction between a continuing offense which is 'held, for venue purposes, to have been committed wherever the wrongdoer roamed,' Travis v. United States, 364 U.S. 631, 634, 81 S.Ct. 358, 5 L.Ed.2d 340 (1961); see United States v. Cores, 356 U.S. 405, 78 S.Ct. 875, 2 L.Ed.2d 873 (1958), and 's single act which occurs at one time and at one place in which only it may be tried, although preparation for its commission may take place elsewhere.' Reass v. United States, 99 F.2d 752, 754 (4 Cir. 1938) (Soper, J.); United States v. Anderson, 328 U.S. 699, 66 S.Ct. 1213, 90 L.Ed. 1529 (1946); Travis v. United States, supra. In Burton v. United States, 196 U.S. 283, 296-304, 25 S.Ct. 243, 49 L.Ed. 482 (1905), the Supreme Court held that an indictment of a United States Senator for receiving compensation in a matter in which the United States was interested, see 18 U.S.C. 281, could not be laid in St. Louis, the place of the mailing of a check on a St. Louis bank which the Senator deposited in a Washington, D.C., bank; having concluded that the deposit was a sale of the check, thereby ruling out a theory that the Senator realized nothing until it was honored by the St. Louis bank, the Court expressly disapproved an alternative argument that the mailing of the check was the beginning of a receiving under the predecessor of 18 U.S.C. 3237. Compare Benson v. Henkel, 198 U.S. 1, 9 (1905), and see Dobie, Venue in Criminal Cases in the United States District Court, 12 Va.L.Rev. 287, 289-290 (1926). The recent decision in United States v. Johnson, 337 F.2d 180, 193-195 (4 Cir. 1964), aff'd without discussion of this point, 383 U.S. 169, 86 S.Ct. 749, 15 L.Ed.2d 681 (1966), is not to the contrary, although some of its language may be; the holding was that a Congressman could be tried in Maryland for receiving when he had deposited in Maryland banks checks on Maryland and Florida banks delivered to him in Washington, D.C. A number of state decisions hold the receiving of stolen goods to be a single step crime, many expressly refusing to regard it as a continuing offense within state statutes comparable to 3237. See Sledge v. State, 40 Ala.App. 671, 122 So.2d 165 (1960); People v. Stakem, 40 Cal. 599 (1871); Allison v. Commonwealth, 83 Ky. 254 (1885); State v. Ellerbe, 217 La. 639, 47 So.2d 30 (1950); People v. Zimmer, 174 App.Div. 470, 160 N.Y.S. 459 (1916), aff'd, 220 N.Y. 597, 115 N.E. 1047 (1917); State v. Pray, 30 Nev. 206, 94 P. 218 (1908); 4 Wharton, Criminal Law and Procedure 1510, at 101-02 (1957); 22 C.J.S. Criminal Law 185(22). To such extent as the issue is doubtful, it is best to resolve the doubt in favor of a construction which will ensure trial where witnesses to the receiving are more likely to be present; otherwise the mere happenstance of a telephone call from a district, possibly remote, where a defendant chanced to be, could deprive him of the protection of the Sixth Amendment. United States v. Johnson, 323 U.S. 273, 276, 65 S.Ct. 249, 89 L.Ed. 236 (1944). Accordingly the convictions on this Count must be vacated and the Count dismissed for lack of venue in the Eastern District of New York. 36 The situation with respect to Count 4 which named Frank and Bedrich Polak as principals and Bozza and others as aiders and abettors for receiving the proceeds of the Woodbridge burglary is wholly different. Although Frank Polak lived in the Eastern District and engaged in more preliminary activities there than did DeLutro, whose presence in Brooklyn on the occasion of the telephone call appears to have been only accidental, we accept that, for reasons just stated, Polak could have been tried for receiving only in the Southern District of New York. However, Bozza himself engaged in various accessorial acts in the Eastern District, and at common law could have been tried for them there, and indeed only there. See United States v. Gillette, 189 F.2d 449, 451 (2 Cir.) cert. denied 342 U.S. 827, 96 L.Ed. 661, petit. for rehearing denied 342 U.S. 879, 72 S.Ct. 164 (1951), motion for leave to file second petit. for rehearing denied 345 U.S. 945, 73 S.Ct. 827, 97 L.Ed. 1370 (1952). This court held in Gillette that 18 U.S.C. 2, which would have permitted Bozza to be tried in the Southern District as a principal, 'does not superasede the common law rule of venue but provides an additional venue.' 189 F.2d at 451-452. The venue of this count was proper. 37 The issue as to Count 5, making charges with respect to the Keyport stamps identical with those in Count 4 as to Woodbridge, raises still another question. Here again the receiving was in the Southern District but, in contrast to Count 4, Bozza himself performed no accessorial acts in the Eastern District although his confederates, Williams and Kuhle, did. While we perceive no constitutional obstacle to Bozza's being tried in the Eastern District for causing Williams' and Kuhle's accessorial acts there, we have been furnished no authorities to show that the common law would have permitted this and we do not read the statute, 18 U.S.C. 2, as doing so. Although this would authorize trial of Bozza in the Southern District of New York as a principal for the crime of receiving the Keyport stamps even though he remained in New Jersey, its words do not seem apt to confer additional venue in the Eastern District for his causing Williams and Juhle to abet there; Congress seems to have been content with venue where the defendant's own accessrial acts where committed or where the crime occurred, without providing still another where the accessorial acts of agents took place. It could indeed be argued that the single step theory, however suitable to receiving, is inapplicable to aiding and abetting a receiving. But we think the 'offense' mentioned in 18 U.S.C. 3237(a) is the substantive crime defined in the Code and not the aiding or abetting of it. The judgment convicting Bozza on this count must therefore be vacated and the count dismissed for improper venue. 38