Court Opinion

ID: 9446090
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-03 21:45:54.965425+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:30:31.247012
License: Public Domain

BIGGS, Chief Judge
(dissenting).
The indictment charged the defendant-appellant with a conspiracy to violate Section 4047(e) (4), Title 26 U.S.C.A.1 It was alleged that the conspiracy continued with the defendant-appellant as a party thereto up to and including October 7, 1949. The indictment was returned on September 20, 1955; therefore more than five and one-half years elapsed between the commission of the offense and the return of the indictment.
Section 3748,2 26 U.S.C.A. was amended on August 16, 1954 by Section 201(a), 68A Stat. 929, to read as follows:
*559“(a) Criminal prosecutions. No person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished, for any of the various offenses arising under the internal revenue laws of the United States unless the indictment is found or the information instituted within three years next after the commission of the offense, except that the period of limitation shall be five years for offenses enumerated in section U0U7 (e) (relating to unlawful acts of revenue officers or agents) and except that the period of limitation shall be six years— [Emphasis added.]
“(1) for offenses involving the defrauding or attempting to defraud the United States or any agency thereof, whether by conspiracy or not, and in any manner,
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“(b) Scope of limitations. Subsection (a) of this section shall apply to offenses whenever committed; except that it shall not apply to offenses the prosecution of which was barred before June 6, 1932.”
The per curiam opinion of this court concludes that the purpose of this amending section was to increase the period of limitations for those Section 4047(e) violations which had a three year period to five years, but was not intended to decrease the six year limitation period applicable to Section 4047(e) (4) violations to five years. The language of the Section as amended states, however, that the period of limitations shall be five years for Section 4047(e) violations, which include, of course, Section 4047 (e) (4) violations. The face of the statute is unambiguous. The conclusion is that the applicable period of limitations should be deemed to be five years in the case at bar. Caminetti v. United States, 1916, 242 U.S. 470, 485, 37 S.Ct. 192, 61 L.Ed. 442; United States v. Mock, D.C. N.D.Cal.1956, 143 F.Supp. 661, 664.
The per curiam opinion, however, goes one step further and concludes that even if the applicable statute of limitations were five years, a defense based on the statute of limitations was waived by the defendant-appellant because he failed to plead or assert it specifically in bar. But statutes of limitations applicable to criminal offenses differ from statutes of limitations in civil actions. In civil actions statutes of limitations are deemed to be mere statutes of repose. In criminal actions statutes of limitations bar prosecution. Wharton, Criminal Evidence § 21; Dangel, Criminal Law § 107. It follows that the protection afforded by a criminal statute of limitations goes to the defendant’s liability as a matter of substantive law. United States v. Oppenheimer, 1916, 242 U.S. 85, 37 S.Ct. 68, 61 L.Ed. 161; United States ex rel. Hassell v. Mathues, D.C.E.D.Pa.1928, 27 F.2d 137. The burden of proving affirmatively that the crime was committed within a period not proscribed by the applicable statute of limitations is on the United States. Az Din v. United States, 9 Cir., 1956, 232 F.2d 283, 287; United States v. Schneiderman, D.C.S.D.Cal.1952, 106 F.Supp. 892. Accordingly, the authorities are clear that the statute of limitations need not be specifically pleaded, but is put in issue, in criminal cases, by a plea of not guilty. United States v. Brown, 24 Fed.Cas. p. 1263, No. 14,665; United States v. White, 28 Fed.Cas. p. 562, No. 16,676; United States v. Cook, 1813, 17 Wall. 168, 84 U.S. 168, 21 L.Ed. 538; Forthoffer v. Swope, 9 Cir., 1939, 103 F.2d 707; Housel and Walker, Defending and Prosecuting Federal Criminal Cases § 348. These authorities are applicable since the defendant-appellant entered a plea of not guilty on January 6,1956. The view that the charge of the indictment is barred by the statute of limitations is therefore a clearly supportable one.
As to the issue of res judicata, a most important one, the views stated in Judge Hastie’s dissent to the original opinion of this court filed February 14, 1958, seem unanswerable.
*560For the foregoing reasons I am of the opinion that the case should be reheard before the court en banc.
I am authorized to state that Judge KALODNER and Judge HASTIE join in this dissent.

. The indictment also charged the defendant-appellant with other violations but those charges were not pressed and the court below restricted its charge to the conspiracy to violate Section 4047(e) (4), Title 26 U.S.C.A. This court is concerned therefore with the charge of the indictment last designated.

. The • section as originally enacted and quoted in the per curiam opinion was:
“(a) Criminal prosecutions. No person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished, for any of the various offenses arising under the internal revenue laws of the .United States unless the indictment is found or the information instituted with.in three years next after the commission of the offense, except that the period of limitation shall be six years—
“(1) for offenses involving the defrauding or attempting to defraud the United States or any agency thereof, whether by conspiracy or not, and in any manner,”