United States v. Crosby

1 Hughes 448 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of District of Columbia | 1871

BOND, Circuit Judge.

After the prolonged and very able argument of counsel upon this motion to quash, we feel embarrassed, gentlemen, that, upon so little deliberation, we are to pass judgment upon the grave questions raised here. But the fact that so many persons axe now in confinement upon these charges and that so many witnesses are in attendance upon the court, at great personal expense, makes it necessary that we should not delay longer. And the first objection to the first count in the indictment is, that the section of the act of May 31st, 1870, which this count charges the parties with conspiring to violate, declares no penalty for the offence. The first section of the act declares a right. It is referred to in this count by its number, and with sufficient certainty it seems to us to enable the parties charged, after trial, to plead the verdict rendered in this ease in bar to another indictment. After declaring the right, the statute proceeds, in section 7, to define the punishment for its violation. It is not necessary, it seems to us, that each section of the act should contain or disclose the penalty for its infraction. That is often, as in this statute, referred to a later and generally to the closing section of the act defining the crime or offence, and is made applicable to all the antecedent sections. It is objected, moreover, that this count does not contain the names of the parties who, being entitled to vote, were to be hindered and prevented from the exercise of the elective franchise by the traversers. It must be remembered that this is not an indictment to punish a wrong done to individuals, against the peace and dignity of the United States, but for a conspiracy to do that wrong. The offence is completed the moment the compact is formed, whether any person, within the contemplation of the first section, has actually been hindered or not If the trav-ersers never committed any overt act, but separated and went home after the completion of the conspiracy, they have incurred the penalty which the seventh section prescribes. So it makes no difference what particular person the conspiracy when put in motion first reached. The act complained of is the conspiracy; and if it be true that any person was hindered or prevented from the exercise of the right granted by the first section, such hindrance and prevention is only proof of the conspiracy, and does not in anywise tend to make the crime more complete. It is generally sufficient, in charging a statutory offence, to set it out in the words of the statute. If the statute uses a common law name for a crime which it proposes to punish, the indictment must set forth the various ingredients of the crime which go to make up the offence at common law. But when the statute itself creates the offence and defines it, it is sufficient if the indictment uses the words of the statute, unless the words be indefinite and vague, ambiguous or general, in which case the indictment must so particularize the act complained of that the party charged shall be in no doubt of the offence alleged against him. The certainty required is that which will enable him to plead the verdict in bar of any future action. It is alleged,, in this count, that this conspiracy was to go into operation at an election not yet held, to wit, the third Wednesday of October, 1872, and it is objected that this is not sufficient, that the right to vote is not a continuing right, but exists , only at the time of its immediate exercise. It would be strange, indeed, if parties could not be punished, if it be neees-sary to punish them at all, for any offence hut those committed against this act on election day, and in the direct exercise of the elective franchise. The usefulness of the act of congress would he entirely frustrated by such requirement. A man may be so effectually intimidated weeks before the election that he would not dare to go within a mile of the polls, and all the mischief the act is intended to remedy would flourish, and no punishment could be awarded them, under this construction, because the right to vote is not a subsisting right, but one which recurs to the citizen on election day. We do not so hold. The uncertainty which the count leaves as to whether this was a state election or a federal is urged as fatal. The indictment charges that this was a conspiracy to violate the first section of this act. This section declares that all citizens shall be allowed to vote at all elections, who are qualified by law to vote, without distinction of race, or color, or previous condition of servitude. Congress has never assumed the power to prescribe the qualifications of voters in the several states. To do so is left entirely with the states themselves. But the constitution has' declared that the states shall make no distinction on the grounds stated in this first section. And, by this legislation, congress has endeavored, in a way which congress thought appropriate, to enforce it. It is this act of appropriate legislation, and the first section of it, which the defendants are charged with violating, and we think it makes no difference at what election, whether it be state or federal, he is intimidated or hindered' from voting because of his race, color, or previous condition of servitude. Congress may have found it difficult to devise a method by which to punish a state which, by law, made such distinction, and may have thought that legislation most likely to secure the end in view which punished the individual citizen who' acted by virtue of a state law or upon his individual responsibility. If the act be within the scope of the amendment, and in the line of its purpose, congress is the sole judge of its appropriateness. The next objection, which is that the count does not set forth the qualification of the voter, is sufficiently answered, we think, in the remarks we have made respecting the requirements of indictments setting forth statutory offences.

We are of opinion that the second count of ythe indictment is bad, because it does not allege that Amzi Rainey was qualified to vote; and for another reason, more fatal, that it alleges the right of Rainey to vote to be a right and privilege granted to him by the constitution of the United States. This, as we have shown, is not so. The right of a citizen to vote depends upon the laws of the state in which he resides, and is not granted to him by the constitution of the United States, nor is such right guaranteed to him by that instrument All that is guaranteed is, that he shall not be deprived of the suf-rage by reason of his race, color, or previous-condition of' servitude.

The third count is a repetition of the second, with a clause setting out a charge of burglary. Concerning the court’s jurisdiction over such charge, the court is divided in opinion, and will, therefore, make no comment on it at this time.

The fourth count is obnoxious to the objection that neither the citizenship of Rainey nor the fact of his. qualifications to vote is set out.

The fifth count repeats the charge contained in the fourth, with the additional clause contained in the third count, and the court refrains from noticing it for the reasons given as to the first count.

The sixth count is intended to charge a conspiracy to oppress Rainey for having prior to 1st February, 1871, exercised the right of suffrage; and would be good if it were drawn with the particularity of the first count, which charges a conspiracy to oppress, to prevent the future exercise of this right. It does not, however, contain any allegation of the fact of qualification, nor that the party was entitled to vote in York county, or anywhere else, or that he ever exercised his right to vote.

The seventh count is a repetition of the sixth, with the charge of burglary added, as in the third count.

The eighth count alleges a conspiracy to prevent and hinder Rainey from the exercise of a right secured to him by the constitution of the United States, which is defined to be the right to be secured in his person and papers against unreasonable search. The article in the constitution of the United States, to enforce which this count is supposed to be drawn, has long been decided to be a mere restriction upon the United States itself. The right to be secure in one’s house is not a right derived from the constitution, but it existed long before the adoption of the constitution, at common law, and cannot be said to come within the meaning of the words of the act “right, privilege, or immunity granted or secured by the constitution of the United States.”

The ninth count is entirely too indefinite, and the defendants could not possibly know, from its language, with what offence they were charged; and the same objection is valid as to the tenth count.

The eleventh and last count of the indictment charges a conspiracy to injure Rainey because he had previously voted for a member of congress. We have no doubt of the power of congress to interfere in the protection of voters at federal elections, and that that power existed before the adoption of either of the recent amendments. It is a power necessary to the existence of congress, and this count seems to set forth the charge with sufficient perspicuity, and is not liable to the objections urged against it.

UNITED STATES v. CROSBY. See Case No. 14,781.

The motion to quash is overruled as to the first and eleventh counts of the indictment, and sustained as to the othei>, excepting such as the court is divided respecting.