Court Opinion

ID: 9418225
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:14:19.659151+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:16:21.562950
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Holmes,
with whom concurred Mb. Justice Lubton, Me. Justice Hughes and Me. Justice Lamae, dissenting.
This is an indictment under Rev. Stat. § 5440, amended, act of May 17, 1379, c. 8, 21 Stat. 4, for a conspiracy to defraud the United States. The' petitioners were tried and convicted in the District of Columbia, the conviction was affirmed by the Court of Appeals, 35 App. D. C. 451, and thereupon a writ ’of. certiorari was granted by this court. ' The scheme was to obtain by fraudulent devices from-the States of California and'Oregon school lands lying within, forest reserves, to exchange them for public lands of the United States open to selection, and then to sell the lands so obtained. Hyde and Schneider were in California and never were actually in. the District in aid of the conspiracy, but overt acts are alleged to have been done there to effect the objects in view. Most of these acts are innocent, taken by themselves, consisting mainly of the entry of appearance by Hyde’s lawyer in the matter of different selections, the filing of papers concerning them, and letters urging speed. Hyde is alleged to have caused some documents affecting the same to be transmitted from California to the Commissioner at Washington, and in .the last six counts payments to employés in the Land Office' are alleged to have been made with corrupt purpose and in aid of the plan by a person who was included in the'indictment as a conspirator, but whom the jury did not convict,
*385The court instructed the jury that if the defendants agreed to accomplish their purpose by having any of the alleged overt acts done in the District of Columbia, and any of those acts were done there, the conspiracy was in the District, whether the defendants were there or not. The defendants excepted to this instruction, as well as to many others.
I have said enough to show that there was more than one question in the case, but as the first and also the .most important one is whether the court had jurisdiction of the alleged offence, I shall confine myself to. that.
The conspiracy was continuous in its. nature and. is averred to have been so. United States v. Kissel, 218 U. S. 601. Therefore, wherever it was formed, it might have been continued in the District of Columbia, as, for instance, if the conspirators had met there for the purposes of their scheme Moreover, in order to narrow the question, I will assume that, so far as the statute of limitations is concerned, an overt act done anywhere with the express or implied consent of conspirators would show the conspiracy to be continuing between the parties so consenting, and leave them open to prosecution -for three years from that date. But it does not follow that an overt act draws the conspiracy to wherever such overt act may be done, and whether it does so or not is the question before us now.,.
In order to answer this question it is not- enough to say that as the overt act was. one that was contemplated by the conspirators it is treated as the act of them all, and that this is equivalent to saying that they were constructively present. That would be passing a dicto secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter. They are chargeable there for the act, but it- does not follow that they were there to other intents. They are shown not to have been by the fact that they could not be treated as fugitives from justice even in respect of that very act, when and although that act was itself a crime. Hyatt v. Corkran, 188 U. S. 691, 712. *386To speak of constructive presence is to use the language of fiction, and so to hinder precise analysis. When a-man is said to be constructively present where the consequences of an act done elsewhere are felt, it is meant that for some special purpose he will be treated as he would have been treated if he had been present, although he was not. For instance, if a man acting in one State sets forces in motion that kill a man in another, or produces or induces some consequence in that other that it regards as very hurtful and wishes to.prevent, the latter ' State is very likely to say that if it- can catch him it will .punish him, although he was not subject to its laws when he did the act. Strassheim v. Daily, 221 U. S. 280, 285. But as States usually confine their threats to those within the jurisdiction at the time of the act, American Banana Co. v. United Fruit Co., 213 U. S. 347, 356, the symmetry of general theory is preserved by saying that the offender was constructively present in the case supposed. Burton v. United States, 202 U. S. 344, 389. We must not forget facts, however. He was not present in fact, and in theory -of law he was present only so far as to be charged with the act.
Obviously the use of this fiction or form of words must not be pushed to such a point in the administration of the national law as to transgress the.requirement of the. Constitution that the trial of crimes shall be held in the State and district where the crimes shall have been committed.' Árt. Ill, § 2, Cl. 3. Amendments, Art. VI. With the country extending froin ocean to ocean this requirement is even more important now than it was a hundred .years ago, and must be enforced in letter and spirit if we^are to .make impossible hardships amounting to grievous wrongs. In the case of conspiracy the danger is conspicuously brought out. . Every overt act done in aid of it of course is attributed to the conspirators, and if that means that the conspiracy is present as such wherever any *387overt act is done, it might be at. the choice of the Government to prosecute in any one of twenty States in none of which the conspirators had been. And as wherever two or more have united for the commission of a crime there is ■ a conspiracy, the opening to oppression thus made is very wide indeed. It is even wider if success should be held not to merge the conspiracy in the crime intended and achieved. I think it unnecessary to dwell on oppressions that I believe have been practised or on the constitutional history impressively adduced by Mr. Worthington to show that this is one of the wrongs that our forefathers meant to prevent. ■
No distinction can be taken based on the gravity of the overt act, or the fact that it was contemplated, or that it is important for the accomplishment of the substantive evil that the conspiracy aims to bring about' and the law seeks to prevent. That would be carrying over the law of attempts to where it does not belong. Although both are adjective crimes, a conspiracy is not an attempt, even under Rev. Stat. § 5440, which requires an overt act. When I first read that section I thought that it was an indefinite enlargement of the law of attempts. But reflection and the decisions both Convinced me that I was wrong. The statute simply did away with a doubt as to the requirements of the common law. Rex v. Spragg, 2 Burr. 993, 999; Roscoe, Crim. Ev. 6th ed. 381, 382. An attempt, in the strictest sense, is an act expected to bring about a substantive wrong by the forces of' nature. With it is classed- the kindred offence where the act and, the natural conditions present or supposed to be present are not enough to do the harm without a further act, but where it is so near to the result that if coupled with an intent to produce that result, the danger-ds very great. Swift & Co. v. United States, 196 U. S. 375, 396. But ' combination, intention and overt act may all be present without amounting to a criminal attempt- — as if all that *388were done should be an agreement to murder a man fifty miles away and the purchase of a pistol for the purpose. There must be dangerous proximity to success. But when that exists the overt act is the essence' of the offence. On the other hand, the essence of the conspiracy is being combined for an unlawful purpose — and if an overt act is required, it does not matter how remote the act may be from accomplishing the purpose, if done to effect it; that is, I suppose, in furtherance of it in any degree. In this case the statute treats the conspiracy as the crime and the indictment follows the statute.
The cases in this court have agreed that the statute has not made the overt act a part of the crime, which still remains the conspiracy alone. By the same reasoning the overt act gives no ground for the application of Rev. Stat. § 731, creating a double jurisdiction when an • offence against the United States is begun in one district and completed in another. The act is no part of the conspiracy even if it is an element in some other crime, as is stated in so many words in Hyde v. Shine, 199 U. S. 62, 76, quoting the well known statement in United States v. Britton, 108 U. S. 199, 204, that the statutory requirement merely affords a locus penitentioe. Delay v. United States, 152 U. S. 539, 547. See also United States v. Hirsch, 100 U. S. 33. Pettibone v.. United States, 148 U. S. 197, 202. Bannon v. United States, 156 U. S. 464, 469. The overt act is simply evidence that the conspiracy has passed beyond words and is on foot when the act is done-. As a test of actuality it is made a condition to punishment, but it is no more, a part of the crime than it was at common law, where it was customary to allege such an act; or than is the fact that the statute of limitations has not run.
I can think óf no other case in which it would be argued that an act constituting no part of the crime charged draws jurisdiction to the place where it is done. Even when the act is the substance of a felony the history of the *389law shows that the courts only slowly and with hesitation came to the admission that a man, although within the jurisdiction, could be a principal when he was not present at the accomplishment of the crime. Y. B. 7 Henry, VII, 18, pi. 10. The distinction between principal and accessory before the fact is a late surviving expression of the doubt. 4 Bl. Com. 36, 37. When the accessory is in a different jurisdiction it has been held that he could not be convicted as such in the place of the crime, even in modern cases. State v. Moore, 6 Foster, N. H. 448, Bish. Crim. Law, 8th ed., § 111. It would be an amazing extension of even the broadest form of fiction if it should be held that an otherwise innocent overt act done in one State drew to itself a conspiracy in another State to defraud people in the latter, even though the first State would punish a conspiracy to commit a fraud beyond its own boundaries. Of course in the present case the conspiracy as well as the overt act was within the United States, but the case that I have supposed of different jurisdictions is a perfect test of where the crime was committed. If a conspiracy exists wherever an'overt act is done in aid of it, the act ought to give jurisdiction over conspirators in a foreign State, if later they should be caught in the place where the act was done.
The defendants were in California and never left the State, so far as this case is concerned. The fraud, assuming as I do for the purposes of decision that there was one, was to get land from the United States there and elsewhere on the Pacific Coast. If successful it would be punished there. The crime with which the defendants are charged is having been engaged in or members of a conspiracy, nothing else; no act, other than what is implied as necessary to signify their understanding to each other. It is punished only to create a further obstacle to the ultimate crime in California. The defendants never were members of a conspiracy within a thousand miles of the District *390in fact. Yet if a lawyer entered his appearance there in a case before the Land Department, a4d the defendants directed it and expected to profit by it in carrying out their plans, it is said that we should feign that they were here in order to warrant their being taken across the continent and tried in this place. The Constitution is not to be satisfied with a fiction. When a man causes an unlawful act, as in the case of a prohibited use of the mails, it needs no fiction to say that the crime is committed at the place of tibe act, wherever the man may be. Re, Palliser, 136 U. S. 256. But when the offense consists solely in a relation to other men with a certain intent, it is pure fiction to say that the relation is maintained and present in the case supposed.- If the Government, instead of prosecuting for the substantive offence, charges only conspiracy to commit it, trial ought to be where the conspiracy exists in fact.
The effect of an overt act upon the statute of limitations is consistent with what I have said. If an overt act is done with the consent of the conspirators, and to effect their end, the reason why the statute begins to run afresh is not that a new conspiracy is made or the old one renewed by the act, but that the facts supposed show conclusively that the conspiracy is continuing in life. So long as it does so it cannot be barred, although the earlier years of it may be.
To avoid misapprehension the distinction should be noted between acts done in aid of a conspiracy and acts that constitute and call it into being. If a conspiracy should be formed by letters between men. living in California, Louisiana and Massachusetts, who never left their several States, nothing thfit I have said would disparage The right of the Government to indict them where in contemplation of law the agreement was made.
It is said that the conspiracy may be a secret one; but that cannqt affect the tests of jurisdiction. The overt act may amount to evidence not only of its existence but of its place. But to treat overt acts as evidence is one *391thing; it is quite another to treat any overt act as sufficient in itself to give jurisdiction, although the conspiracy exists only in another place.
The intimations that are to be found, opposed to the view that I take, appear to have been induced by the com-fusion that I have tried to dispel, and to assume that an Overt act creates jurisdiction over a conspiracy on the same ground that causing, a death may give jurisdiction in murder; or, perhaps, in The King v. Brisac, 4 East, 164, 171, to. proceed on the dangerous analogy of treasonable conspiracies to levy war. or compass the death of the sovereign. The dictum in that case gains ho new force from the repetition by text writers. It is one of the misfortunes of the law that ideas become encysted in phrases and thereafter for a long time cease to' provoke further analysis. On the other hand, if overt acts had been regarded as founding jurisdiction, the petitioners could not have been discharged in Tinsley v. Treat, 205 U. S. 20, where overt acts of other conspirators within the jurisdiction were alleged and hot denied. Although the point was not mentioned in the opinion, it 'was argued and was not overlooked. At least in the absence of clear statutory words I am of opinion that logic and the policy and general intent of 'the Constitution agree in refusing to extend the fiction of constructive presence to a case like this. I think that the true view still is that of Reg. v. Best, 1 Salk. 174, “The venue must be where the conspiracy was, not where the result of the conspiracy-is put in execution,” quoted as correct in principle in Markby’s edition of Roscoe’s Criminal Evidence, 6th ed., 391; and that to decide otherwise is to overrule not only the often expressed and settled understanding but the express decisions of this court.
Mr. Justice Lurton, Mr. Justice Hughes and Mr. Justice Lamar concur in this dissent.