Opinion ID: 1487677
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: acts of treason committed in an enemy country are punishable.

Text: On a motion to dismiss, appellant advanced the point that the indictment failed to state facts sufficient to constitute an offense, because treason against the United States is not committed by adherence to the enemy by one residing in enemy territory. This contention is reiterated on appeal, notwithstanding the concession in appellant's brief (1) that, since treason is a violation of allegiance, conduct may consistently with the law of nations be made an offense against the United States, though the acts be without its territorial jurisdiction, and (2) that the language of the constitutional definition may be broad enough to include such acts. It is clear that under the constitutional definition of treason, Congress has power to punish treason committed abroad. In drafting the provision with reference to treason, the framers of the Constitution had much in mind the old English Treason Act of 25 Edw.III. See Hurst, Treason in the United States: II, 58 Harvard Law Review 395 et seq. (1945). Though the Constitutional Convention undoubtedly intended to restrict the definition of treason in certain particulars, the indications are compelling that there was no intention to put a territorial limitation upon the crime as defined. The Act of 25 Edw.III had included within the definition of treason the following (as translated from the Norman French in Rex v. Casement, L.R. [1917] 1 K.B. 98, 99n.):    or if a man do levy war against our Lord the King in his realm, or be adherent to the King's enemies in his realm, giving to them aid and comfort in the realm, or elsewhere, and thereof be probably attainted of open deed by the people of their condition:    In Rex v. Casement, supra, it was held by the Court of Appeal that the Act of 25 Edw.III comprehended treason by a British subject committed in Germany during the first World War. Many of the authorities cited for this interpretation antedated the Constitutional Convention. See 8 Holdsworth, History of English Law, 307, 308. Nevertheless, there was a verbal ambiguity in the English Act, which lent some plausibility to the argument that the adherence must be within the King's realm, though the aid and comfort might be given elsewhere. Jefferson noted this, in 1778, in his proposed revision of the Virginia Criminal Code, which contained a definition of treason expressly drawn to cover foreign treasons. See Hurst, Treason in the United States, 58 Harvard Law Review 252-53 (1944). In the Constitutional Convention, the Committee of Detail reported a draft on August 6, 1787, in which treason was defined, without any territorial limitation, as consisting only in levying war against the United States, or any of them; and in adhering to the enemies of the United States, or any of them. In Committee of the Whole, Morris and Randolph proposed a substitute, reading, that if a man do levy war agst. the U. S. within their territories, or be adherent to the enemies of the U. S. within the said territories, giving them aid and comfort within their territories or elsewhere, and thereof be provably attainted of open deed by the People of his condition, he shall be adjudged guilty of Treason. This substitute was voted down. 2 Farrand, Records of the Federal Convention, 347-48. Article III, § 3, of the Constitution, as finally adopted, reads: Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort. No Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court. It was therefore not by inadvertence that the constitutional definition contains no territorial limitation either in the phrase with respect to adherence or in the phrase with respect to the giving of aid and comfort. We agree with the conclusion of the district judge that the words within their territories, within the said territories, and within their territories or elsewhere contained in the substitute proposed by Morris and Randolph, were omitted deliberately from the final draft, and with a purpose to encompass foreign treasons. 72 F.Supp. 234. The first Congress proceeded promptly to exercise its power on the subject of treason. The Act of April 30, 1790, 1 Stat. 112, provided that, if any person or persons, owing allegiance to the United States of America, shall levy war against them, or shall adhere to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere,    such person or persons shall be adjudged guilty of treason against the United States,   . This language, without substantial change, was carried forward into Rev.Stat. § 5331 and into § 1 of the Criminal Code, 35 Stat. 1088, 18 U.S.C.A. § 1 (1946 ed.) and is now found in 18 U.S.C.A. § 2381. In view of the striking similarity between the constitutional definition of treason, and the almost contemporaneously enacted statutory definition, the same reasons which lead to the conclusion that the constitutional provision encompasses foreign treasons also indicate that the statutory language is to be read in similar comprehensive fashion. As in the Constitution, so in the statute, words of territorial limitation within the United States are omitted from the end of the phrase with reference to adhering to the enemy; and the statutory addition of the words within the United States or elsewhere at the end of the phrase with reference to the giving of aid and comfort is not an apt expression of intended territorial limitation but indicates, rather, quite the contrary. The express words of the statutory definition seem to us to overcome any possible presumption against the extraterritorial application of criminal statutes; and furthermore there seems to be no such presumption with reference to a crime of this character. States denounce the crime of treason as a matter of self-preservation. It is not unlikely that a person meditating treason would take himself beyond the territorial limits of the United States in order to perpetrate the crime with greater security to himself. The nature of treason, therefore, is such that there is no a priori reason for supposing that the Congress would naturally be inclined to restrict the statutory definition of the crime to treason within the territorial limits of the United States. In this connection the language of Chief Justice Taft in United States v. Bowman, 1922, 260 U.S. 94, 43 S.Ct. 39, 67 L.Ed. 149, is pertinent. In that case a provision of the Criminal Code punishing conspiracies to defraud the United States was construed as applicable to citizens of the United States upon the high seas or in a foreign country, though the Act contained no express language as to the locus of the offense. The Court said, 260 U.S. at pages 97, 98, 43 S.Ct. at page 41: We have in this case a question of statutory construction. The necessary locus, when not specially defined, depends upon the purpose of Congress as evinced by the description and nature of the crime and upon the territorial limitations upon the power and jurisdiction of a government to punish crime under the law of nations. Crimes against private individuals or their property, like assaults, murder, burglary, larceny, robbery, arson, embezzlement and frauds of all kinds, which affect the peace and good order of the community, must of course be committed within the territorial jurisdiction of the government where it may properly exercise it. If punishment of them is to be extended to include those committed outside of the strict territorial jurisdiction, it is natural for Congress to say so in the statute, and failure to do so will negative the purpose of Congress in this regard.    But the same rule of interpretation should not be applied to criminal statutes which are, as a class, not logically dependent on their locality for the government's jurisdiction, but are enacted because of the right of the government to defend itself against obstruction, or fraud wherever perpetrated, especially if committed by its own citizens, officers or agents. Some such offenses can only be committed within the territorial jurisdiction of the Government because of the local acts required to constitute them. Others are such that to limit their locus to the strictly territorial jurisdiction would be greatly to curtail the scope and usefulness of the statute and leave open a large immunity for frauds as easily committed by citizens on the high seas and in foreign countries as at home. In such cases, Congress has not thought it necessary to make specific provision in the law that the locus shall include the high seas and foreign countries, but allows it to be inferred from the nature of the offense. United States v. Bowman was cited with approval in Skiriotes v. Florida, 1941, 313 U.S. 69, 73, 74, 61 S.Ct. 924, 928, 85 L.Ed. 1193, for the proposition that a criminal statute dealing with acts that are directly injurious to the government, and are capable of perpetration without regard to particular locality, is to be construed as applicable to citizens of the United States upon the high seas or in a foreign country, though there be no express declaration to that effect.