199 F. 649 | E.D.N.Y | 1912
An .information has been filed against the defendant company, charging a violation of Act June 30, 1906, c. 3915, known as the Pure Food and Drugs Law. The informa- - tion alleges that the defendant corporation, on September 1, 1909, did, within the county of Kings and state of New York, unlawfully ship and deliver for shipment, by a steamboat line, from Brooklyn to Norfolk, in the state of Virginia, a certain drug, which was not properly branded as required by the statute. The other allegations have nothing to do with the questions now raised by the defendant, who has interposed a plea .in bar, after appearing by attorney. This plea attacks, first, the jurisdiction of the District Court, in this the Eastern district of New York, alleging that the defendant corporation is organized under the laws of the state of New York, with its office and principal place of business within the Southern district, and not within the Eastern district.
The position taken by the defendant, however, is that the prosecution can only be brought in the district where the corporation, in so far as it is able, carries out the mental and physical process, through its agent, of setting in motion activities which shall result in the shipment of the goods through interstate commerce. But such a-contention is not a literal statement of the words of the statute, nor would this law be capable of such application. Where two constructions of a statute are possible, one leading to a practical method of procedure, while the other leads only to an ineffectual or impossible position, the practical meaning should be taken, and the statute so construed as to accomplish the object for which it was intended, unless this object be plainly contrary to the results which would be obtained by the construction followed.
It is evident that the result of prosecution, in the present instance, in the Southern district of New York, would lead to a dismissal of an indictment; for no contract or order to cause the shipment of goods by interstate commerce could be construed as the actual act of shipment. Hence the result of such a holding would bé to limit prosecution under the statute to a district where prosecution could not be successful, and such construction would have been made in the face of the plain statement that the crime consists of “shipping or offering for shipment,” which is-the act of starting the shipment of the goods by some common carrier, or other means of transportation, having as its first step a delivery for shipment. To hold otherwise would mean a differentiation in the possession of the goods by the defendant before they were packed, while they were packed up in the warehouse, and while they were on its delivery wagon or other means of transfer, and while its own possession of these goods was entirely-undisturbed.
■ For these reasons it is plain that the information is correct in form, in charging that the crime, if committed under the. statute, began with the delivery of the goods to the steamship company in Brooklyn, and that prosecution should be had in this district.
The defendant also, pleads the statute of limitations in an original way. The Pure Food ,and Drugs Law provides for a hearing upon notice, after examination, and, if an adulteration of a drug shall be found, that an opportunity of a hearing shall be given. If, after the hearing, it appears that any of the provisions of the act have been violated-, the statute is specific and technical in its description of the acts prohibited, and in the statement of the penalty. therefor. The defendant, therefore, invokes the well-known doctrine that a specific statute, repealing in terms, or in necessary effect, the provisions of the general statute, shall be held to prevail. over all the provisions of a general statute, which are thus expressly or impliedly set aside. '
' [8] The general statute of limitations, formerly two years and now three years, by the statute of 1876 (Act April 13, 1876, c. 56, 19 Stat. 32 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 725]) is claimed by the de
The defendant would apparently seek to substitute for the general statute of limitations, of three years after the commission of an offense,' an ambiguous and uncertain equitable determination by the court as to whether the proceedings had been so promptly conducted that the prosecution should be allowed to go on. The theory of a statute of limitations is no longer dependent upon the presumption of some grant freeing the person interested from prosecution, or the lapse of time within which the evidence has presumably been lost. It is rather a definite period prescribed by law, within which an indictment must be filed, provided the defendant is not a fugitive. There is nothing in the Pure Pood and Drugs Law which interferes with the operation of a statute of three years, beyond which delay cannot be allowed; Whether or not laches on the part of the government officials had intervened, and whether the defendant’s rights had thereby been prejudicially affected, or whether the act which was charged as an offense has been reduced to a mere technicality, would be something for the court to take into account in imposing-sentence. But it cannot be said that the intent of Congress was to set up different standards or time limits for the actual filing of an indictment (either greater or less than three years as the case might be) by provisions in the law intended to assure a speedy hearing and a prompt method of determining whether acts would be considered by the department as violations of the law, from which a criminal prosecution might result. Even if the acts in question had been terminated, and the prosecution might thereby depend upon methods or practices long since discontinued, or if the defendant, because of the delay in instituting proceedings, had continued upon a course which it ultimately found would bring itself, in conflict with the government, these matters, again, would b,e questions to be considered in imposing sentence, and are not a bar to the filing of an information at any time within the three-year period.
The pleas must be overruled, and the defendant called upon to plead generally to the information.