Court Opinion

ID: 9422101
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:01:18.31123+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:45.023704
License: Public Domain

MR. Justice Harlan,
whom Mr. Justice Frankfurter and Mr. Justice Clark join,
dissenting.
Title 18 U. S. C. § 3237 (a) provides in pertinent part:
“Except as otherwise expressly provided by enactment of Congress, any offense against the United States begun in one district and completed in another . . . may be inquired of and prosecuted in any district in which such offense was begun ... or completed.” (Emphasis added.)
On my view of the offense with which Travis is charged, I think that under this section the Government was entitled to proceed either in Colorado, where this affidavit *638was made, or in the District of Columbia, where the affidavit was filed, and therefore dissent from the Court’s holding that venue was improperly laid in Colorado.
Section 9 (h) of the National Labor Relations Act, as amended by the Taft-Hartley Act,1 61 Stat. 136, 146, provided that the National Labor Relations Board shall neither make an investigation nor issue any complaint on behalf of a labor union unless there is on file with it a non-Communist affidavit of the kind here in question. 18 U. S. C. § 10012 is specifically made applicable to such affidavits. That section of the criminal code makes it an offense, in any matter within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States, to falsify a *639material fact, make a false statement, or make or use any false writing or document. The elements of the crime here involved, therefore, are set out in 18 U. S. C. § 1001, and what § 9 (h) does is simply to supply the “jurisdiction of . . . [an] agency of the United States” required by § 1001.
If this crime may properly be viewed as having been begun in the district of Colorado and completed in the district of the District of Columbia, then venue may be laid in either district under 18 U. S. C. §3237 (a). Whether that is the proper view of this offense is an issue on which the authorities in this Court are at best inconclusive. In In re Palliser, 136 U. S. 257, the Court held that where the defendant had mailed in New York to a postmaster in Connecticut a letter which constituted a prohibited tender of a contract with intent to induce the postmaster to violate his lawful duty, venue could properly be laid in the district of Connecticut. The Court expressly left open the question of whether venue might also have been laid in New York, 136 U. S., at 267-268. To the same effect is Burton v. United States, 202 U. S. 344. United States v. Lombardo, 241 U. S. 73, which the Court considers particularly significant, is not controlling, since in that case the offense charged was the failure to file with the Commissioner General of Immigration certain information concerning an alien woman whom the defendant was harboring for purposes of prostitution. In such a charge it is difficult to see how the defendant does anything at all except at the place where he fails to file. But cf. United States v. Cores, 356 U. S. 405. In contrast, the false affidavit in the present case first came into existence in Colorado, having been made and sworn to there.
Nor do the opinions in the lower courts establish anything like a clear line of authority from which it would be unwise now to depart. If anything, I think, they indi*640cate a contrary conclusion to that now reached by the Court. Compare Henslee v. United States, 262 F. 2d 750; United States v. Miller, 246 F. 2d 486; De Rosier v. United States, 218 F. 2d 420; United States v. Downey, 257 F. 366, and Bridgeman v. United States, 140 F. 577, with United States v. Valenti, 207 F. 2d 242.
In these circumstances, the proper course to follow appears to me to be to determine the appropriate venue “from the nature of the crime alleged and the location of the act or acts constituting it,” United States v. Anderson, 328 U. S. 699, 703, and that determination should take into account that
“. . . The provision for trial in the vicinity of the crime is a safeguard against the unfairness and hardship involved when an accused is prosecuted in a remote place. Provided its language permits, the Act in question should be given that construction which will respect such considerations.” United States v. Cores, 356 U. S. 405, 407.
In this kind of case, prosecution in the district in which the affidavit was executed, most often I would suppose the place where the union offices are located, is more likely to respect the basic policy of the Sixth Amendment than would a prosecution in the district where the affidavit was filed. The witnesses and relevant circumstances surrounding the contested issues in such cases more probably will be found in the district of the execution of the affidavit than at the place of filing which, as in this instance, will often be for the defendant “a remote place,” United States v. Cores, supra—that is the District of Columbia where the headquarters of the National Labor Relations Board are located in the case of officers of international unions, or elsewhere throughout the country where the Board has branch offices in the case of local union officers, 29 CFR § 101.3.
*641This is not to say that venue must be limited to the place of execution of the affidavit, but only that there is no lack of consonance with the underlying policy of the Sixth Amendment in permitting venue to be laid there if the elements of the crime allow. United States v. Anderson, supra. In holding that the crime for which this petitioner was prosecuted does not allow venue to be laid in the district of the making of the affidavit, the Court considers the essence of the crime to be the filing of the affidavit, and until that is accomplished it holds that the crime is not even begun. But since it is 18 U. S. C. § 1001 which defines the offense, § 9 (h) only supplying the requisite jurisdiction of the agency of the United States, and since by § 1001 the offense consists of falsifying a material fact, making a false statement, or making or using any false writing or document, it seems eminently reasonable to consider that the offense is at least definitively begun at the place where the false affidavit is actually made, sworn and subscribed. Cf. the Henslee, Miller, De Rosier, Downey and Bridgeman cases, supra.
It is of course true that the offense is not completed until the affidavit is filed with the Board, but I do not think it adds anything to say, as the Court does, that until such time as the affidavit is filed with the Board there is no matter “within the jurisdiction of any department or agency of the United States.” The fact that the filing completes the offense by giving the Board jurisdiction over the matter does not, in my view, detract from the conclusion that the offense was begun when and where the affidavit was executed. Indeed this would seem to be the very type of situation contemplated by 18 U. S. C. §3237 (a).
Since I consider it would be inappropriate for me, in dissent, to discuss issues which the Court does not reach, I refrain from considering the other grounds for reversal urged by the petitioner.

 “No investigation shall be made by the Board of any question affecting commerce concerning the representation of employees, raised by a labor organization under subsection (c) of this section, and no complaint shall be issued pursuant to a charge made by a labor organization under subsection (b) of section 160 of this title, unless there is on file with the Board an affidavit executed contemporaneously or within the preceding twelve-month period by each officer of such labor organization and the officers of any national or international labor organization of which it is an affiliate or constituent unit that he is not a member of the Communist Party or affiliated with such party, 'and that he does not believe in, and is not a member of or supports any organization that believes in or teaches, the overthrow of the United States Government by force or by any illegal or unconstitutional methods. The provisions of [18 U. S. C. § 1001] shall be applicable in respect to such affidavits.” 29 U. S. C. § 169 (h), repealed by the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, 73 Stat. 519, § 201 (d).

 “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.”