Opinion ID: 275484
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: As to the Conspiracy

Text: 12 The first question we are called upon to decide is whether the District Court had jurisdiction to try an alien for a conspiracy to commit a crime against the United States, formed without the United States, several of the overt acts having been committed in furtherance of the conspiracy within the United States by a co-conspirator. 13 In Ford v. United States, 273 U.S. 593, 47 S.Ct. 531, 71 L.Ed. 793 (1927) the Supreme Court clearly put the United States in the camp of those nations adopting the objective view of the territorial principle. In that case the defendants were also Canadian nationals. They were arrested on a British vessel outside the three mile limit of the United States and charged with conspiracy to violate the prohibition and revenue laws of the United States. At all times during the alleged conspiracy they were corporeally outside the United States. Their arrest was upheld on the basis of a treaty, and the Court's jurisdiction to try them for conspiracy was upheld on the basis that overt acts were committed within the United States by co-conspirators and the conspiracy had for its object crime in the United States, and was carried on partly in and partly out of this country   . 273 U.S. at 624, 47 S.Ct. at 541. 14 This case presents the same situation. Rivard twice sent co-conspirator Caron across the Canadian border to deliver caches of heroin brought back from Europe by Massey and Jones to another co-conspirator, Miller, in Connecticut. Caron also travelled by automobile from Quebec to Mexico through the United States and was on his way back through the United States with yet another load of heroin to be delivered in Connecticut when he was apprehended in Texas. There is thus no doubt that the object of the conspiracy was to violate the narcotics laws of the United States; that the conspiracy was carried on partly in and partly out of this country; and that overt acts were committed within the United States by co-conspirators. In the words of Mr. Chief Justice Taft: 15    The conspiring was directed to violation of the United States law within the United States, by men within and without it, and everything done was at the procuration and by the agency of each for the other in pursuance of the conspiracy and the intended illegal importation. In such a case all are guilty of the offense of conspiring to violate the United States law whether they are in or out of the country. Ford v. United States, 273 U.S. 593, 620, 47 S.Ct. 540. 16 In Marin v. United States, 5 Cir., 1965, 352 F.2d 174 this Circuit relied on the Ford case in upholding the District Court's jurisdiction over a Cuban national residing in Mexico indicted for conspiring with others to smuggle heroin into the United States from Mexico. Marin, like appellants here, was never in the United States during the time of the formation or operation of the conspiracy. We conclude that, under the principles of the Ford and Marin cases, the District Court had jurisdiction over appellants for the conspiracy. 10