This is аn appeal from a judgment of conviction on an indictment for perjury. Appellant was set upon, assaulted, a.nd shot down in the streets of Washington on the 21st day of July, 1936. He was taken to a hospital, where two days later he made a statement to Lieutenant Cox and two other members of the police department, in which he nаmed Samuel S. Montgomery, Joseph S. Bond, and George F. Tear as his assailants. The statement attributed the assault to bad feeling growing out of'rivalry between himself and Montgomеry in the “bootlegging” business. The statement was stenographically recorded. Montgomery and the two other accused were subsequently indicted and brought to trial, and aрpellant was called by the United States as a witness against them. When under oath in that trial, appellant testified that he did not remember making certain material parts of the statement, and he denied that he had made certain other material parts of it. Because of the alleged falsity of this testimony, he was indicted for pеrjury, and it is from his conviction that he appeals.
First. Appellant objected to the admission in evidence of the hospital statement on the ground that it had been procured from him by promises and threats. He requested the court to hear evidence upon this question in the absence of the jury, and offered to prove that his statement was procured from him by the promise of the police to release Miss Viola Jennings, who was with him at the time of the assault and who had since been held in the Hоuse of Detention. The trial judge stated, in substance, that he was of opinion the evidence was not pertinent to the issue, but that he would permit it to be heard by the jury and wоuld subsequently rule upon its effect on the admissibility of the statement. Exception was taken to this ruling, on the ground that the court should itself first consider and determine whether the statement was admissible. Ordinarily it is proper procedure, in a criminal case where an incriminating statement of the accused is claimed to have been obtained by duress, for the judge to hear the evidence and determine its admissibility out of the presence of the jury. But that rule has no application here, for the question was not the incriminating nature of the statement but whether, as charged in the indictment, the statement had in fact been made. If appellant had been indicted for the violation of the liquor laws which' his statement re
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vealed, proof that duress and coercion induced the statement would have rendered it inadmissible. But that is not this case. Or if the chаrge of the indictment had been that appellant, having first stated on oath that a certain fact was true, had later stated on oath that it was not true, and if apрellant had defended on the ground that his first statement was made under duress, the admissibility of that statement might be questionable. State v. Thornton,
Second. Appellant insists the court cоmmitted error in allowing the stenographer who recorded his statement to read to the jury those parts of it which proved his commission of other criminal offenses. Thе evidence was admitted under these circumstances : I.n his statement to the police appellant not only told the names of his assailants but also the facts lying behind the occurrence, — how he and his assailants were rival bootleggers and how disputes had arisen between them over the distribution of what we may call marketing areas. Appellant objected to the introduction of these parts of the statement on the ground that in the prosecution for one criminal offense evidenсe of the commission of another and separate crime is inadmissible. Wc have said in a number of cases that distinct and different crimes independent of that charged may not be used to establish guilt. Borum v. United States,
Third. The final assignment is that the court erred in sentencing appellant under the District of Columbia Code perjury provision, 1 instead of under the Federal Penal Code provision. 2 The limit of punishment in the former is two years minimum and ten years maximum, while in the latter the limit is a fine and imрrisonment not to exceed five years. The argument is that appellant cannot be punished in the United States Court for the District of Columbia more severely than he сould he punished in any other United States Court. We think there is nothing to the point.
In Johnson v. United States,
“The Codes are separate instruments, and no certain test can be deduced from pointing out particular likenesses or differences. But the effect of separation is important and necessarily had its purpose. The Codes had in the main special spheres of operation and provisions accommodated to such spheres. There is certainly nothing anomalous in punishing the crime of murder differently in different jurisdictions. It is but the application of legislation to conditions. * * * ”
Had Congress intended that the perjury statute in the federal penal code should have effect in the District of Columbia, we think it would have said so in plain language. In' the,nature of things there must be overlapping of some statutes, but we find no reason to suppose that every general statute of the United States was intended to supersede statutes enacted specifically to meet local conditions. Undoubtedly some genеral statutes may be concurrently effective with local statutes, but we cannot think Congress intended the local statute covering perjury to apply so far as definition is concerned but meant for the general statute to apply as to punishment. In our view the local statute is exclusively applicable.
The judgment of conviction is, therefore, affirmed.
Affirmed.