104 F. 136 | 6th Cir. | 1900
after stating the foregoing facts, delivered the opinion of the court.
The question presented is, was such a charge and showing made of the commission of an offense against the laws of the United States in the Northern district of Texas as to warrant an order directing the-appellants to be taken to that district for trial ? The statute under cover of which the indictment is drawn reads as follows:
“Any person and any officer or agent of any corporation or company who shall deliver property for transportation to any common carrier subject to the provisions of this act, or for whom, as consignor or consignee, any such carrier shall transport property, who shall knowingly and willfully, by false billing, false classification, false weighing, false representation of the contents of the package, or false report of weight, or by any other device or means, whether with or without the consent or connivance of the carrier, its agent or agents, obtain transportation for such property at less than the regular rates then established and in force on the line of transportation, shall be deemed guilty of fraud, which is hereby declared to be a misdemeanor, and shall, upon conviction thereof in any court of the United States of competent jurisdiction within the district in which such offense was committed, be subject for each offense to a fine not exceeding $5,000, or imprisonment in the penitentiary for a term of not exceeding two years, or both, in the discretion of the court.”
This act undertakes to define the crime, and provide for the punishment of certain persons who shall, by means of the fraudulent practices described in the act, obtain transportation for property at less than the regular rates. The act defines certain classes of persons who aré amenable to its provisions, and they are: • (1) Any person,
The acts charged against the appellants in both counts are misrepresentations by false billing and classification of the property described, delivered by them to the railroad company at Cincinnati for transportation from that city to the city of Dallas, Tex., by which means transportation between said cites was obtained at less than the regular established rates. It is apparent from the reading of the act that the object thereof is to prevent shippers from obtaining undue advantage by procuring transportation for their property over interstate lines at less than the regular rates which are charged others similarly engaged. The shipper is to be punished whether he acts with or without the consent or connivance of the carrier or its agents. The reading of the indictment, as well as the fact stated in the bill of exceptions, shows that the acts alleged to have been committed by appellants were all done and performed in the city of Cincinnati, in the Southern district of Ohio. The false representation of the character of the goods, the delivery for transportation, and every act directly alleged to have been done by appellants took place in that jurisdiction. It is claimed on the part of the government that, while this may be true, the crime was not completed in the Southern district of Ohio, but that it required transportation of the goods, and that the term “transportation” is to be taken, in its ordinal signification, as meaning the carriage of the goods, and that this carriage was not completed until the goods reached their destination at Dallas; that, therefore, the ofíense would be committed only when this transportation beyond state lines is completed; and the case then comes within the provisions óf section 731 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, which provides:
“When any offense against the United States is begun in one judicial circuit and completed in another, it shall be deemed to have been committed in either, and may be dealt with, inquired of, tried, determined or punished in either district, in the same manner as if it had been actually and wholly committed therein.”
This section was intended to provide for that class of cases where the crime is not completed in one district, but a separate and distinct act of commission essential to the crime is committed in another district, in which case the statute provides that prosecution may be had in either district. That class of cases is illustrated in the case of In re Palliser, 136 U. S. 257, 10 Sup. Ct. 1034, 35 L. Ed. 514, in which the offense charged was an offer of money contained in a letter mailed in New York and addressed to a postmaster in Connecticut, and where the supreme court held that the offense continued to be committed in Connecticut. It was there that the act of the accused operated upon the mind of the postmaster. There it was that he received the proposal, and the criminal act became effective. Horner
This brings us to consider what is the nature of the offense and where does it become complete. The thing aimed at in this section of the act is to prevent undue advantage which will accrue to a shipper who obtains lowered rates by means of false classification, billing, etc. This rate is manifestly obtained where the goods are billed by the earner for transportation. It is not the transportation of the goods which is prohibited and punished, but the obtaining of the transportation by means of false and fraudulent conduct, which is the gist of the offense. What is it, then, to obtain transportation in the sense of this statute? We think that false billing or other misrepresentation of the goods, as stated in the act, which results in their being received by the carrier under a contract of carriage thus fraudulently obtained, is the obtaining of transportation within the meaning of the statute. Then the fraudulent conduct of the shipper has borne its fruit, and every act and intent which constitutes the offense is complete. It is urged that transportation of the goods to the full measure contracted for is necessary to constitute the crime. This argument ignores the fact that the punishment is not so much on account of the transportation as for the wrongful conduct which has obtained it. Ordinarily, a delivery to the carrier is a delivery to the consignee. Every act which the consignor can do about the goods, all representations which he can make concerning them, the weight and classification thereof, are complete, and the goods turned over to the carrier for the consignee. Then the crime has been accomplished which the statute seeks to punish, namely, obtaining by the shipper of transportation at rates which others in a similar business, who pay the regular rates, do not secure. If the transportation must be to the point of destination, then an unforeseen accident, which might prevent the carrying of the goods through, would condone the offense, although the accused had committed every act and obtained everything the statute requires in order to make out the offense. If such is the transportation contemplated in the act, then the discovery of the fraud by the carrier, after carriage partially completed, with consequent refusal to take the goods to their destination, will render the crime incomplete. If the goods are accidentally lost, is the crime any the less committed when all the acts of the accused, with the intent and purpose to defraud, have concurred to complete the offense? We do not think such was the intent and purpose of congress in enacting this law. Its puipose was to reach and punish the person guilty of the things named in the statute who should thereby obtain transportation for his goods. This conclusion is in harmony
For the reasons herein stated, we think the offense charged was committed within the Southern district of Ohio, and that the learned court erred in ordering the appellants into custody of the marshal to be transported to the Northern district of Texas, and in refusing to discharge the appellants in the proceeding in habeas corpus. Both judgments will be reversed, and the appellants discharged from further custody.