Court Opinion

ID: 9417743
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 20:33:48.070659+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:49.121367
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Hablan
dissenting.
I concur with my brethren in holding that the judgment against Petersen and Johansen should be reversed, and a new trial ordered as to them.
But I am of opinion that the judgment against Wiborg should also be reversed. It is conceded that the men on the tug. were received on board the Horsa at a point off Barnegat which was more than three miles from our shore. It is clear from the evidence that at the time his vessel left Philadelphia, and previous to his receiving those men on board, Wiborg had no knowledge of the purpose for which the charterer ordered him, after he passed the Breakwater, “to proceed north near Barnegat and wait further orders.” The movements of the vessel were under the control of the charterer. Wiborg was under no legal obligation to inquire from the charterer why the Horsa was ordered to that point, or what were the orders he was likely to receive after arriving there. His duty was to obey the orders of the charterer, unless such orders obviously contemplated a breach of the laws of this country. The only evidence in the case bearing upon the question whether Wiborg knew, when he left Philadelphia, of *661any arrangement for iiis vessel, after it passed beyond the territory and jurisdiction of the United States, to receive men destined for Cuba, was that given by himself. And he distinctly swore that when he started from Philadelphia he did not know that “ we were going to take these people and their goods on the Horsa.” There was not the slightest ground in the evidence to suppose that he ever had an}' communication with those people, or that he ever saw them, before they came on his vessel. Those persons had, of course, arranged with the charterer for passage on the Horsa. But the charterer did not communicate the fact of such an arrangement to the captain of the vessel while he was within the territory and jurisdiction of the United States. The direction that he should receive the men and their goods on board came to him, from the charterer, when he was not within the territory or jurisdiction of the United States. He cannot, therefore, be said to have provided or prepared, “within the territory or jurisdiction of the United States,” any means for the expedition or enterprise against the territory or dominion of Spain. Under the interpretation placed upon the statute by the government, the charterer did provide for such means. But, curiously enough, the charterer was not indicted. The prosecution is against the officers of the vessel, no one of whom, according to the proof, had any knowledge, at the time the Horsa left Philadelphia, nor while it was within the jurisdiction of the United States, that the charterer had arranged that the vessel, after it got beyond the jurisdiction of the United States, should receive on board individuals destined for Cuba, and who intended, after they arrived there, to engage in the straggle to overthrow the authority of Spain in that island.
Independently of the view just expressed, this was not, I think, a military expedition or enterprise within the meaning of the statute. It had none of the features of such an expedition or enterprise. There was no commanding officer, whose orders were recognized and enforced. It was, at most, a small company of persons, no one of whom recognized the authority of another, although all desired the independence of Cuba, and had the purpose to reach that island, and engage, *662not as a body, but as individuals, in some form, in the civil war there pending — a loose, unorganized body, of very small dimensions, and without any surroundings that would justify its being-regarded as a military expedition or enterprise to be carried on from this country.