Opinion ID: 1487677
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: massachusetts is the district into which the defendant was first brought.

Text: But appellant in various appropriate motions raised the further contention: That assuming § 41 of the Judicial Code to be applicable, the District of Massachusetts was not that into which the accused was first brought. The circumstances under which Chandler was apprehended and brought back to the United States have been set forth earlier in this opinion. Appellant's argument is in the alternative, (1) that the word brought means brought with intent to leave or brought and actually left and does not include the case of one brought into the district for a brief pause in the course of transit through the district, and on this view Chandler was first brought into the District of Columbia; or (2) if, however, the word brought includes the case of one brought into a district by plane solely for the purpose of transit through the district, it is immaterial whether the plane lands in the district or whether its flight in the air space over the district is uninterrupted, and on this view it would follow that Chandler was first brought into the District of Maine. It would indeed be unfortunate if we were compelled to hold, on such a highly technical ground, that this elaborate trial has gone for naught. The meanings of found (or apprehended, as in the earlier versions), and of first brought, have been before the courts in several cases. United States v. Thompson, C.C.D.Mass.1832, 28 Fed.Cas. 102, No. 16,492; United States v. Bird, D. C.D.Mass.1855, 24 Fed.Cas. 1148, No. 14,597; United States v. Baker, C.C.S.D.N.Y. 1861, 24 Fed.Cas. 962, No. 14,501; United States v. Arwo, 1873, 19 Wall. 486, 22 L. Ed. 67; Kerr v. Shine, 9 Cir., 1905, 136 F. 61; United States v. Townsend, D.C.S.D. N.Y.1915, 219 F. 761; Pedersen v. United States, 2 Cir., 1921, 271 F. 187. In most of these cases the court was able to give an interpretation which would sustain the then pending criminal prosecution, as against the contention that the offense should have been prosecuted in some other district. As above pointed out, the phrase first brought originated in the Act of April 30, 1790, long before the days of air travel. Congress could hardly have contemplated that flight across the air space of a particular district constituted bringing the accused into the district; therefore Maine was certainly not the proper district for this trial. In the analogous situation of transit through the territorial waters of a district, without landing, the cases say that such district is not the district into which the accused was first brought. Pedersen v. United States, supra; United States v. Baker, supra. See United States v. Arwo, supra. The Government makes the reasonable contention, and we so hold, that the district into which the accused is first taken under custody and landed is the district into which the accused is first brought within the meaning of § 41 of the Judicial Code; and this was the district of Massachusetts in the case at bar. Such an interpretation is consistent with all the decided cases to which our attention has been directed. It is an interpretation which furnishes a rule of convenient application, turning on easily provable objective facts and not depending upon an inquiry into the intent of the persons who had the accused in custody.