UNITED STATES EX REL. HUGHES v. GAULT, MARSHAL.
No. 513
SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES
Argued April 22, 1926.—Decided May 3, 1926.
271 U.S. 142
The appellant had the option of delivering the remainder of the hay under the terms of the contract, or of not delivering it at all, if the contract had been broken. It chose to deliver. It made a protest, but that was ignored by the officers of the Government, and, when the Government tendered the contract price, it was accepted by the appellant and without protest. Under such circumstances there is no ground for implying a contract to pay more than the contract price. New York & New Haven v. United States, 251 U.S. 123, 127; Nelson Company v. United States, 261 U.S. 17, 23; Willard, Sutherland & Company v. United States, 262 U.S. 489, 494; Atwater & Company v. United States, 262 U.S. 495, 498.
The judgment of the Court of Claims is
Affirmed.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF IOWA.
1. The Constitution does not require any preliminary hearing before removal of an accused person for trial to the federal court having jurisdiction of the charge. Pp. 149, 152.
3. An indictment plainly showing the intention of the grand jury to charge the defendant with violating the Sherman Act, held sufficient for removal purposes. P. 151.
Affirmed.
APPEAL from a judgment of the District Court denying a discharge in habeas corpus. The relator, Hughes, was held for removal to the Northern District of Ohio for trial there under an indictment charging him and fortysix other natural persons and forty-six corporations with having engaged in a combination in restraint of interstate commerce in malleable iron castings, in violation of § 1 of the Sherman Law. At the hearing in the removal proceedings the relator admitted his identity and the Government rested its case on this and a certified copy of the indictment, which alleged that the corporate defendants produced some 75% of the malleable castings product of the United States, and were members of a voluntary trade association through and by means of which they carried out an agreement to eliminate competition among themselves as to prices, terms, and conditions of sale and customers, and that the relator and the other individual defendants (other than one employed as the Secretary of the association,) were officers and agents of the corporations, managing and controlling their affairs. The commissioner, after hearing testimony of two customers of the relator‘s company, struck it out as purely defensive, declined to hear more testimony of the same character, and ordered a commitment on the indictment and on the testimony given by relator on his direct and cross-examinations.
The District Court erred in its decision as to the nature and scope of the issue in removal proceedings, in holding that the indictment, and proof of appellant‘s identity, established the Government‘s right to an order of removal, and wholly disregarding the evidence showing want of probable cause introduced before the Commissioner, and in so doing the court denied the appellant‘s constitutional right to a proper hearing on the issue of probable cause. Tinsley v. Treat, 205 U.S. 20; Harlan v. McGourin, 218 U.S. 442. If the evidence on behalf of appellant demonstrated the lack of probable cause, the Commissioner had no power or authority to commit him, and he was entitled as a matter of constitutional right to his discharge in habeas corpus proceedings.
The evidence on behalf of appellant fully met the case made by the indictment and demonstrated that there was no probable cause to believe him guilty of any violation of the Sherman Act. Apart from a formal charge that all the defendants named in the indictment have violated the Sherman Act, which follows the language of the statute, and cannot possibly be held to state any specific offense which would justify a prosecution, the indictment merely states that the corporations named as defendants have carried on their interstate trade pursuant to an agreement to eliminate competition, have by agreement “from time to time” fixed excessive and non-competitive prices for malleable iron castings and quoted and sold castings at such prices, and have “assigned and allotted their customers to one another” and enforced such allotments by refraining from competing for such customers.” This Court has held in Weeds, Inc. v. United States, 255 U.S. 109, that the word “excessive” as applied to prices has no proper place in a penal proceeding, and it has also
The only basis for the jurisdiction of the District Court for the Northern District of Ohio to which removal is sought, is the charge that the corporate defendants were members of an association with headquarters at Cleveland in that district, and while it is alleged that the association was an instrumentality of the supposed combination, there is no statement of what it did in pursuance thereof, or indeed that it did anything.
It stands out clearly upon the record that the Government abandoned the charge of price-fixing and the allotment of customers made in the indictment. It could do nothing else in the face of appellant‘s uncontradicted and unimpeached testimony. There remains nothing except the fact that appellant‘s company was a member of a trade association which maintained a bureau of information, and there is not a shred of evidence that appellant or any one else ever made use of this bureau for any improper or unlawful purpose. We insist that upon such evidence the Commissioner had no power or authority to hold the appellant, that the District Court erred in refusing to discharge him from custody, and that the order appealed from should be reversed.
In Charlton v. Kelly, 229 U.S. 447, there was competent legal evidence produced to show the commission of the crime. The question arose as to the defense of insanity.
In Collins v. Loisel, 259 U.S. 309, another extradition case, the court found that the evidence to support the charge of obtaining property by false pretenses was adequate. The court reviewed the evidence and said that it was clear that this evidence would justify a conviction not only for cheating, but also of obtaining property under false pretenses.
In Gayon v. McCarthy, 252 U.S. 171, the court reviewed the evidence at length and reached its decision in the case, which was one of habeas corpus, only on the ground that there was “substantial evidence” before the Commissioner showing probable cause.
This Court has held, Tinsley v. Treat, 205 U.S. 20, and cases following, that, while the indictment, if it is a valid and sufficient one on its face, may be regarded as enough to put the defendant to his proof, the defendant has a constitutional right to show the absence of probable cause. Of course, this constitutional right is a substantial one. It is not a matter of form. But of what consequence is the right, if the defendant‘s evidence destroys the basis for a finding of probable cause and his evidence is ignored?
This Court has held in habeas corpus cases that the indictment is not conclusive, and that it is a denial of a constitutional right to regard it as conclusive. But to receive evidence which leaves no basis for a finding of prob-
Assistant to the Attorney General Donovan, with whom Solicitor General Mitchell and Mr. Clifford H. Byrnes, Special Assistant to the Attorney General, were on the brief, for appellee.
In a removal proceeding in the federal courts the committing magistrate must determine three questions: (1) Whether an offense appears to have been committed; (2) whether it appears to have been committed in the judicial district to which the removal is sought; and (3) whether there is any evidence tending to show that it was committed by the accused.
The production of a certified copy of the indictment which states an offense and alleges jurisdiction in the court in which it was found, together with proof of identity, furnishes prima facie but not conclusive evidence of all of these three elements.
The court before which removal proceedings are pending, or the court reviewing its action on habeas corpus; should not attempt to pass on the technical sufficiency of the indictment as a criminal pleading, but should consider whether it, as evidence, tends satisfactorily to show the commission of an offense, and jurisdiction in the court where it was found, to try the accused for such offense. In the case at bar such questions as are raised as to the sufficiency of the indictment are of a character which should be left to be resolved by the trial court, and not decided on removal proceedings. As the court in which this indictment was found had previously passed on and sustained the indictment, its decision was properly recognized as controlling in the removal proceedings.
The indictment in this case is sufficient, in any event, to meet every test which can be applied. It has been sus-
The accused has a constitutional right to rebut the evidence against him. The scope of such rebuttal evidence is largely in the discretion of the committing magistrate. In the case at bar there was no abuse of such discretion. The court in the habeas corpus proceedings had before it the same evidence which was before the Commissioner, and seems to have concluded upon such evidence that probable cause existed. But whatever reason it had for discharging the writ, the order should be affirmed, since the record shows that if the evidence as well as the indictment be considered, the action of the Commissioner was correct.
MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.
The relator was indicted for violation of the Anti-trust Act of July 2, 1890, (c. 647,) in the Eastern Division of the Northern District of Ohio. He appeared, upon notice, before a Commissioner of Ottumwa, Iowa, and after a hearing he was ordered to be held for removal.
The Constitution does not require any preliminary hearing before a person charged with a crime against the United States is brought into the Court having jurisdiction of the charge. There he may deny the jurisdiction of the Court as he may deny his guilt, and the Constitution is satisfied by his right to contest it there. With immaterial exceptions any one in the United States is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and may be required to stand trial wherever he is alleged to have committed the crime. In Tinsley v. Treat, 205 U.S. 20, 33, the conclusion is not that the appellant by being denied the right to present any evidence was deprived of his rights under the Constitution, but that he was denied ‘a right secured by statute under the Constitution.’
As that instrument does not provide for bringing the accused into the power of the Court authorized to try him, a statute was necessary and is found in
The relator testified before the Commissioner both in general terms and in detail that he and his company were innocent. The Commissioner excluded further details from him confirmatory of what he had sworn and evi-
We do not regard the attack upon the indictment as needing discussion. It has been upheld by a number of District Courts and by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit as sufficient for removal purposes. It alleges that the Iowa Malleable Iron Company under the charge of the relator was party to an agreement to eliminate competition in interstate trade and to fix excessive and noncompetitive prices, and that the company and the relator are engaged in a conspiracy in restraint of trade among the States. The relator is not left in doubt of the effort of the grand jury to present him as criminal under the Sherman Act.
It is pointed out in Beavers v. Henkel, 194 U.S. 73, 83, that there are much stronger reasons for caution in surrendering an alleged criminal to a foreign nation than are required before removing a citizen from one place to another within the jurisdiction, yet in the latest case on extradition it is said that ‘habeas corpus is available only to inquire whether the magistrate had jurisdiction, whether the offence charged is within the treaty and, by a somewhat liberal extension, whether there was any
But to recur to what we intimated at the beginning, the requirements of the statute, be they greater or less, are not requirements of the Constitution but only in aid of the Constitution, made, in rather a remote sense, ‘in order that any one accused shall not be deprived of this constitutional right’ to be tried in the District wherein the crime shall have been committed. 205 U.S. 32. A statement in Harlan v. McGourin, 218 U.S. 442, 447, that Tinsley v. Treat held the exclusion of evidence to be a denial of a right secured under the Federal Constitution is inaccurate as we have shown. The relator‘s contention that he has been deprived of constitutional rights fails.
It follows that the order of the District Court must be affirmed.
Order affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE SUTHERLAND concurs in the result.
MR. JUSTICE BRANDEIS is of the opinion that, by refusing to hear and to consider evidence introduced or offered which bore upon the existence of probable cause, the Commissioner did not merely commit error, but deprived the petitioner of his liberty without due process of law in violation of the Fifth Amendment, because he was denied a fair hearing. Tinsley v. Treat, 205 U.S. 20, 28, 30. Compare Chin Yow v. United States, 208 U.S. 8; Kwock Jan Fat v. White, 253 U.S. 454; United States v. Tod, 263 U.S. 149.
MR. JUSTICE STONE took no part in the decision of this case.