Court Opinion

ID: 9445067
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:19:04.630554+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:06.907814
License: Public Domain

STEPHENS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
The following opinion was prepared by me and submitted to my associates. After many conferences my associates joined in an opinion upholding the conviction, whereas I had concluded that the judgment should be reversed on the ground that the statute of limitations had run prior to the date of the indictment. I am unable to agree with my associates, and evidence my dissent by the filing of my proposed opinion in which only the concluding paragraph has been changed, together with the personal pronoun throughout the opinion where appropriate, and a short paragraph added to footnote 11, page 26.
Under the provisions of the Federal' Property and Administrative Service Act of 1949,1 the Administrator of Gen*233eral Services is authorized to transfer on a basis of need to state departments of education, such equipment or supplies under the control of any federal executive agency as shall have been determined to be surplus. In Arizona, distribution, of such surplus property to the schools and institutions was carried out by the Arizona Educational Agency for Surplus; Property.
Caywood was Assistant Superintendent of Public Information for Arizona. In this capacity he was authorized to sign requisitions for necessary surplus property. Requisitions were made on government DP-2 forms and required the donee to certify in part that it was a school, college, or university operated by the state, that the property donated would be used solely for educational purposes, and that the request was reasonable and proper in view of the use to be made of the property.
On January 18, 1954, Caywood and one Tompkins were indicted and charged with conspiracy2 to violate Title 18 U.S.C.A. § 1001,3 by making false writings in the execution of certain DP-2 forms, and conspiring to deprive the United States of its right to have donable surplus property distributed to eligible institutions in violation of Title 40 U.S.C.A. § 484.4 Caywood was also charged with embezzlement but the court did not submit this charge to the jury. The evidence showed that Caywood had falsely requisitioned various items through the State Educational Agency for Surplus *234Property, knowing that these items would never be distributed to the appropriate institutions, but would be (and later were) appropriated by Tompkins, the other defendant, who sold them and shared the proceeds with Caywood. The Jury returned a verdict of guilty as charged, and the trial court sentenced Caywood to eighteen months in prison, and he appeals.
Conspiracy is a separate and distinct crime from the crime or crimes of its object.5 The crime of conspiracy is complete upon the formation of a criminal agreement and the performance of at least one independent overt act done in furtherance of the unlawful design.6
The overt act done to effect the object of the conspiracy may also, although it need not, constitute the crime which is the object of the conspiracy,7 but it cannot come subsequent to the completion of the substantive crime.8
It is uniformly held that the statute of limitations, unless suspended, runs from the last overt.act during the existence of the conspiracy.9 The conspiracy was complete, in our case, with the overt acts of Caywood in signing and delivering the DP-2 forms to the government of the United States. A total of eight forms were signed, the most recent on June 28, 1950. Title 18 U.S.C.A. § 3282 provides in applicable part:
“Except as otherwise, expressly provided by law, no person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for any offense, not capital, unless the indictment is found * * * within three years next after such offense shall have been committed.” June 25, 1948, c. 645, 62 Stat. 828.10
As I have stated above, the indictment under which appellant was convicted was not found until January 18, 1954, nearly four years after the appellant’s last act performed in aid of the conspiracy. It is therefore apparent that the crime had been committed more than three years before the date of the indictment.
It must be remembered that appellant had not been convicted of a substantive (so-called) crime, and that there is but a single conspiracy charged, viz., a conspiracy to deprive the government of and to thwart the disposition of such government surplus property to eligible schools as provided by § 1001, Title 18 U.S.C.A. See Lonabaugh v. United States, 8 Cir., 1910, 179 F. 476. The indictment contains thirty-nine alleged acts as being overt, as to the crime charged.
To be overt, the act must of course relate to the accomplishment of the substantive crime intended but not yet accomplished nor the intent abandoned.
In our case, the purpose of the conspiracy was accomplished and in the nature of things an act performed after the accomplishment could not be toward its accomplishment or overt in nature, though it might be explanatory of an act which on its face was not overt but so explained was shown to be overt. Some *235of the alleged acts which were set out as overt were actually performed toward the accomplishment of the alleged conspiracy and were therefore a part of it, hut all of such overt acts were performed more than three years prior to the date of the indictment, and therefore were not within, the three-year period of the Statute of Limitations. See Fiswick v. United States, 1946, 329 U.S. 211, 217, 67 S.Ct. 224, 91 L.Ed. 196. There is no proof of any act done toward completing the conspiracy within the three year period of the Statute of Limitations. The other acts alleged as overt which were within the three-year period of the Statute of Limitations were acts committed after the termination of the conspiracy by its successful culmination and many months after the conspirators had deprived the government of its property. These acts referred to the sale of the illegally obtained property to private interests, and to the division of the proceeds between the conspirators. See United States v. Irvine, 1878, 98 U.S. 450, 452, 25 L.Ed. 193, quoted in footnote.11
The crime alleged was not a continuing one, that is, the conspiracy was not kept alive as to a plan to obtain other and additional property in the future illegally from the government. And there is no indication in the evidence upon which such a continuing conspiracy could have been based. Further, neither government counsel nor the trial court treated it as such. In fact, the court instructed the jury that:
“It is charged * * * that they joined together in a scheme to get this Federal surplus property over here to Arizona and make personal use of it. Instead of allowing it to pursue the correct proper course of being distributed to the Arizona schools and school districts, the school system of Arizona.” [Emphasis added]
And the government counsel’s opening statement to the jury at the trial was to the same effect, naming specific property. See our comment on United States v. Kissel and Harned, 1910, 218 U.S. 601, 31 S.Ct. 124, 54 L.Ed. 1168, and definition of “continuing crime” in footnote.12 *236From all the evidence shown in our case, the conspiracy had been accomplished completely (that is, the conspiracy as distinguished from the substantive crime of illegally disposing of the property and collecting the money therefor) more than three years before the indictment was found.13
That is not to say that the conspirators (defendant Caywood here) did not go *237ahead after they had established their conspiracy to commit the crime of illegal disposition of government property by certain overt acts, to perform other and subsequent overt acts toward the accomplishment of the substantive crime which they had conspired to commit. The conspiracy was established by said overt acts prior to and outside the three-year period of the Statute of Limitations. Some of the later and subsequent acts of defendant which were performed toward the consummation of the substantive crime of illegal disposition of government property, were within the statutory three-year period, but they do not indicate that the conspiracy was a “continuing” one in the sense I have hereinbefore denned “continuing” (see my footnote 12, supra). Had defendant’s illegal conspiracy been discovered co-incident with its establishment and an indictment then brought, he could have been convicted of the crime of conspiracy. But the conspiracy was discovered after Cay-wood and his co-conspirator had performed overt acts which were evidentiary of the conspiracy, to-wit, the disposal of the property. The fact that these later and subsequent acts were within the three-year period of the Statute of Limitations does not bring the conspiracy within the statutory period.13a
Prior to the trial, a motion was made on behalf of defendant Caywood to dismiss the indictment on the ground that “[t]he indictment was not found within three (3) years next after the alleged offense was committed.” Immediately upon close of the evidence for prosecution and defense, the jury was excused whereupon the following was stated in open court:
“Mr. Ironside: On behalf of Defendant Tompkins, I make and renew all of the previous motions that have heretofore been made that have not been granted on the same ground and for the same reasons stated. And again renew the motion for judgment of acquittal on the conspiracy count.
“The Court: The ruling will be the same as before.
“Mr. Clark: On behalf of Defendant Caywood, I renew all motions I have heretofore made that have not been granted on the grounds and for the reasons heretofore stated.
“The Court: The same ruling. * * *»
Generally, an appeal ground must be presented to the trial court so that it may correct any error. Since the Statute of Limitations in this case appears, as I see it, upon the face of the indictment itself to have run and the error could only be “corrected” by a dismissal of the indictment, it would appear that the trial court was advised of the situation at the most effective and proper time and that repeti*238tion would have been redundant and more in the nature of a criticism of the court’s ruling, than useful. See Arkansas Bridge Co. v. Kelly-Atkinson Construction Co., 8 Cir., 1922, 282 F. 802, 804; Shepler v. Crucible Fuel Co., 3 Cir., 1944, 140 F.2d 371, 374, to the effect that the statute could be waived. But in our case the statute was affirmatively presented and was not waived. In Retzer v. Wood, 1883, 109 U.S. 185, 3 S.Ct. 164, 27 L.Ed. 900, a civil case, it was held that the general issue did not bring the statute before the court, saying: “It is well settled, that in the absence of a contrary rule, established by statute, a defendant who desires to avail .himself of a statute of limitations as a defense, must raise the question either in pleading, or in trial, or before judgment.” ' [Emphasis added] Assuming this language to apply to a criminal case (I do not decide), the statute in our case was called to the attention of the court' in a proper and timely motion. And in Upton v. McLaughlin, 1881, 105 U.S. 640-642, 26 L.Ed. 1197, the court expresses the opinion that the presentation of the statute is too late if not presented “prior to judgment”. [Emphasis added] I would hold that the Statute of Limitations in our case was properly pleaded, and that the trial court erred in refusing to dismiss the indictment.
Since the prosecution of this crime is barred by the Statute of Limitations, it is not necessary to consider the other grounds urged by appellant. However, I have examined all grounds and briefly refer to and rule upon them.
Specifications of Error Nos. 2 and 3 cover the point that in a’ conspiracy case intent is an element and must be proved. While the giving/of a specific instruction on' intent would have been the better practice, I am of the opinion that the instruction, as a whole, well informed the jury as to the requirements.
Specification of Error No. 4 covers the claim that the statement in the instruction, “Any improper interference with the United States Government in tlie discharge of its activities is deemed to be a fraud on the Government”, is fatal to the verdict and judgment. The quoted sentence alone is not an accurate statement of the law, but read in context with the complete instruction it cannot be held as error.
Specification of Error No. 5 covers the point that the substantive offense was never defined in the instruction. It would have been the better practice to have specifically defined the substantive offense, but its substance was adequately covered by the instruction as a whole. Morris v. United States, 9 Cir., 1946, 156 F.2d 525, 169 A.L.R. 305.
The judgment should be reversed and the case should be remanded with instructions to the district court to dismiss the indictment.

. Title 40 U.S.C.A. § 471 et seq. Section 484 provides, in applicable part:
“§ 484. Disposal of surplus property— * * * * *
*233“(j) (1) Under such regulations as he may prescribe, the Administrator is authorized in his discretion to donate for educational purposes or public health purposes, including research, in the States, Territories, and possessions without cost (except for costs of care and handling) such equipment, materials, books, or other supplies under the control of any executive agency as shall have been determined to be surplus property and which shall have been determined under paragraph (2) or paragraph (3) of this subsection to be usable and necessary for educational purposes or public health purposes, including research.
“(2) Determination whether such surplus property (except surplus property donated in conformity with paragraph (3) of this subsection) is usable and necessary for educational purposes or public health purposes, including research, shall be made by the Federal Security Administrator, who shall allocate such property on the basis of needs and utilization for transfer by the Administrator of General Services to tax-supported medical institutions, hospitals, clinics, health centers, school systems, schools, colleges, and universities * * * which have been held exempt from taxation under ■section 101(6) of Title 26, or to State departments of education or health for distribution to such tax-supported and nonprofit medical institutions * * * [etc.], and universities; except that in any State where another agency is designated by State law for such purpose such transfer shall be made to said agency for such distribution within the State.” June 30, 1949, c. 288, Title II, § 203, 63 Stat. 385; Aug. 10, 1949, e. 412, § 12(a), 63 Stat. 591; Sept. 5, 1950, c. 849, § 4, 64 Stat. 579.

. Title 18 U.S.C.A. § 371 provides:
“If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense against the United States, or to defraud the United States, or any agency thereof in any manner or for any purpose, and one or more of such persons do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
“If, however, the offense, the commission of which is the object of the conspiracy, is a misdemeanor only, the punishment for such conspiracy shall not exceed the maximum punishment provided for such misdemeanor.” June 25, 1948, c. 645, 62 Stat. 701.

. § 1001 of Title 18 U.S.C.A. reads as follows :
“Whoever, in any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States knowingly and willfully falsifies, conceals or covers up by any trick, scheme, or device a material fact, or makes any false, fictitious or fraudulent statements or representations, or makes or uses any false writing or document knowing the same to contain any false, fictitious or fraudulent statement or entry, shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.” June 25, 1948, c. 645, 62 Stat. 749.

. See footnote 1, supra.

. American Tobacco Co. v. United States, 1946, 328 U.S. 781, 66 S.Ct. 1125, 90 L.Ed. 1575; Blumenthal v. United States, 9 Cir., 1946, 158 F.2d 883, rehearing denied, 9 Cir., 1947, 158 F.2d 762, certiorari granted 331 U.S. 799, 67 S.Ct. 1306, 91 L.Ed. 1824, affirmed 332 U.S. 539, 68 S.Ct. 248, 92 L.Ed. 154, rehearing denied 332 U.S. 856, 68 S.Ct. 385, 92 L.Ed. 425.

. Weniger v. United States, 1931, 9 Cir., 47 F.2d 692.

. United States v. Holte, 1915, 236 U.S. 140, 35 S.Ct. 271, 59 L.Ed. 504; Coates v. United States, 9 Cir., 1932, 59 F.2d 173; Heskett v. United States, 9 Cir., 1932, 58 F.2d 897, certiorari denied 287 U.S. 643, 53 S.Ct 89, 77 L.Ed. 556.

. Hall v. United States, 10 Cir., 1940, 109 F.2d 976, 984; United States v. McGee, D.C.Wyo.1952, 108 F.Supp. 909, and authorities at page 912.

. Fiswick v. United States, 1946, 329 U.S. 211, 216, 67 S.Ct. 224, 91 L.Ed. 196; Brown v. Elliott, 1912, 225 U.S. 392, 401, 32 S.Ct. 812, 56 L.Ed. 1136; Lonabaugh v. United States, 8 Cir., 1910, 179 F. 476, 478.

. Title 18 U.S.C.A. § 3282 was amended Sept. 1, 1954, c. 1214, § 10(a), 68 Stat. 1145, by extending the limitation of actions to five years. See § 10(b) of the Act, 18 U.S.C.A. § 3282 note, also.

. In United States v. Irvine, 1878, 98 U.S. 450, 452, 25 L.Ed. 193, the government took the position that where defendant had refused to return certain monies, he could be charged with continuing to withhold them so as to toll the running of the statute of limitations until he returned them. The court, in denying this premise, stated:
“But whatever this may be which constitutes the criminal act of withholding, it is a thing which must be capable of proof to a jury, and which, when it once exists, renders the party liable to indictment.
“There is in this but one offense. When it is committed, the party is guilty and is subject to criminal prosecution, and from that time, also, the Statute of Limitations applicable to the offense begins to run.
ii * * *
“He pleads the statute of two years, * * *; but the reply is, You received the money. You have continued to withhold it these twenty years; every year, every month, every day, was a withholding, within the meaning of the statute.
“We do not so construe the Act. Whenever the act or series of acts necessary to constitute a criminal withholding of the money have transpired, the crime is complete, and from that day the Statute of Limitations begins to run against the prosecution.”
See, also, Fiswick v. United States, 1946, 329 U.S. 211, 67 S.Ct. 224, 91 L.Ed. 196; Lonabaugh v. United States, 8 Cir., 1910, 179 F. 476.
See Nash v. United States, 1913, 229 U.S. 373, at page 378, 33 S.Ct. 780, at page 782, 57 L.Ed. 1232, wherein it is said that the Sherman Act, like common-law conspiracy, “ * * * does not make the doing of any act other than the act of conspiring a condition of liability.” Cited in United States v. Socony-Vacuum Oil Co., 1940, 310 U.S. 150, at page 252, 60 S.Ct. 811, at page 858, 84 L.Ed. 1129.

. Thus, in United States v. Kissel and Harned, 1910, 218 U.S. 601, 31 S.Ct. 124, 54 L.Ed. 1168, the conspiracy was in unlawful restraint of trade, viz., to acquire the majority stock in a competing corporation and cause it to cease operations. The court in holding the defense of statute of limitations to be of no avail, pointed out that such a conspiracy contemplates that the conspirators will remain *236in business and continue their combined efforts to drive the competitor out until they succeed. As a result, the conspiracy continues up to the time of abandonment or success.
In our case, the evidence does not show any intent or overt acts toward subsequently illegally getting other and additional government property, which would make the conspiracy a “continuing” one.
A “continuing crime” is defined by 22 C.J.S., Criminal Law, § 1, p. 52, as: “A * * * continuous, unlawful act or series of acts set on foot by a single impulse and operated by an unintermittent force, however long a time it may occupy; an offense which continues day by day; a breach of the criminal law, not terminated by a single act or fact, but subsisting for a definite period and intended to cover or apply to successive similar obligations or occurrences.”

. The court instructed the. jury in the instant case:
“What the government claims in this case is that defendant Caywood joined in á scheme * '* * to get the property on the pretense it was going to be used for these purposes and then * *•' * used it for * * * personal purposes.” [Emphasis added]
And the court went on to explain that it was not the getting of the property for which defendant was being tried, but for the conspiracy to get it for the illegal purpose. And the court told the jury that:
“The trial is not about anything they [the' defendants] did, it is about whether they had an agreement. That is what you are to consider. Did these people ■have an agreement between them? Did they make it up between them to agree, conspire to do these things? You have to bring into these cases proof of what was done, that follows the agreement, if there was such an agreement. That is not what you are trying, if they did do these things, but do those’ things convince you, all taken together, beyond a reasonable doubt, there was prior agreement to do them.” [Emphasis added]
The jury, acting upon this exceedingly plain talk, of course found that the prior agreement was shown. But not one of the facts showed that the act which deprived the government of the title to its property illegally (and which established the conspiracy) had been done within three years of the indictment or that the conspiracy to get the property, or additional property, had been a live or continuing conspiracy within the three years preceding the indictment.
Of course, as the judge also told the jury, if defendants had secured the property in trust for the illegal users and they sold it for personal gain, a crime other than the crime of conspiracy (for which the defendant was being tried) would have been committed. On this point the court told the jury:
“There was a charge in another indictment here that I have taken out of the case, that * * * these defendants embezzled this property you heard about here. That is a charge of a substantive act. That was based by the government on the theory the property still remained the property of the United States government here in Arizona. I don’t take that view of it. It seemed to me the government ceased to be the owner of the property and so I dismissed the case as to that part but that would have been a substantive charge; they did something, embezzled the property; that is out of the case. The trial is not about anything they did, it is about whether they had an agreement. * * [Emphasis added]
To carry the “continuing conspiracy” as applied to our case, to its logical extreme, will demonstrate its inapplicability, for if the overt acts done toward the commission of the substantive crime (which the defendants conspired to do) and which acts were performed within the three-year period, were held to be in furtherance of the conspiracy and thus to make it a continuing conspiracy and therefore bring it within the three-year period, then it would be as logical to suppose that some years hence, say twenty years, an overt act again would be performed by defendant in furtherance Of the conspiracy by, say, selling some of the illegally diverted property which has possibly not been sold by defendants at present. If that were true, the conspiracy would continue until every piece of property involved were finally sold by defendants, which might go on for years. See United States v. Irvine, 1878, 98 U.S. 450, 452, 25 L.Ed. 193, and my comment in footnote 11, supra.

 Howover, the case was submitted to the jury in the face of these principles, as will be seen by the following quotation from the court’s instructions to the jury, to-wit:
“The Court: * * * They have a lot of proof here that said certain acts were done, the signing of these DP-2’s. If you find Defendant Caywood signed them or authorized them to be signed, that would be an overt act; the unloading of the property out here off the flatcar, hauling it to Tompkins’ ranch, if you find that happened, that would be an overt act; selling the property, dividing the money. You have had proof along all those lines. It is for you to say whether you accept it. But if you do find any things of that nature were done that would satisfy the requirement of overt act in the case. There must be first the agreement to do this thing we talked about here so much, divert this property from the schools and school system here to their own personal use. First agreement, you have to find that existed beyond a reasonable doubt before you can return a verdict of guilty; second, some act by one or the other of the defendants to carry out the agreement; likewise find one or more acts of that sort were done beyond a reasonable doubt before returning a verdict of guilty.” [Emphasis added]
The above overt acts which have been emphasized were those in furtherance of the substantive crime after the crime of conspiracy had already been completed.