Benton v. United States

28 F.2d 695, 1928 U.S. App. LEXIS 2429
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedOctober 16, 1928
Docket2744
StatusPublished
Cited by26 cases

This text of 28 F.2d 695 (Benton v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Benton v. United States, 28 F.2d 695, 1928 U.S. App. LEXIS 2429 (4th Cir. 1928).

Opinion

NORTHCOTT, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal brought to review a judgment of the District Court of the United States for the Middle District of North Carolina. The plaintiff in error, W. G. Benton, was convicted of violating section 3296, R. S. U. S. (26 USCA § 404). The indictment contained two counts, the first charging the defendant with removing distilled spirits upon which the tax imposed by law had not been paid from a distillery to a place other than a distillery warehouse, provided by law, and the second count charged the concealing of said spirits.

Both counts charged the defendant jointly with Robert Benton, and the second count, in one place, used the name Robert Shoe, instead of Robert Benton. The use of the name Robert Benton was evidently a typographical error. Motion was made to quash the indictment on the ground that no such person as Robert Benton existed. This motion the court sustained as to Robert Shoe, but overruled as to the defendant.

The uncontradieted evidence was that three prohibition officers went to the home of the defendant at night and secreted themselves in some vines outside the defendant’s yard; that about daybreak they heard a pump being used in a woodshed some ten steps from defendant’s dwelling house, and saw the defendant and others carry a can, afterwards found to contain 5 gallons of whisky, from the woodshed to an automobile near by. The officers then entered defendant’s yard, and arrested the defendant and a boy. Others of those present ran and escaped. The officers then went into the woodshed, where they had heard the pump, and from which the can of whisky had been carried, and found seven 5-gallon cans containing whisky; back of the woodshed was found a 52-gallon barrel, practically full of whisky; three barrels were found buried in the garden, and two barrels of whisky were found buried in a hog lot. In all, 360 gallons of whisky were found, and the automobile showed by its condition that it had been used in transporting whisky. Some of the whisky found was warm. The defendant admitted the whisky was his property. There is no evidence that the dwelling house was entered.

Three points are relied on by the defendant: (1) That the court below erred in not sustaining the motion to quash the indictment as to the defendant; (2) that section 3296, R. S. U. S., is not in force, having been repealed by the Volstead Act and the Willis-Campbell Act (27 USCA); (3) that the search by which the evidence was obtained was unlawful, and in violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, and that the evidence obtained by the search which' was admitted over the objection of defendant’s counsel should have been excluded.

The offense charged was one that could have been committed by any one of the defendants without the aid or assistance of any one else, and was one for which either of the parties charged could have been convicted separately. The use of a fictitious or mis *696 taken name in no way affected the defendant. Section 1025, E. S. U. S. (18 USCA § 556), provides that:

“No indictment found and presented by a grand jury in any district or circuit or other court of the United States shall be deeiped insufficient, nor shall the trial, judgment, or other proceeding thereon be affected by reason of any defect or imperfection in matter of form only, which shall not tend to the prejudice of the defendant.”
“This section [1025, E. S.] has almost universally been construed to mean mere matters of form should not avail a criminal, if the bill charges the offense in such a way as to fully inform him of the violation of law with which he is charged, and protect him, in the event of acquittal or conviction, against a second trial for the same offense. Mac-Daniel v. U. S. [C. C. A.] 87 F. 324.”

The defendant was fully informed as to the charge against him, and the action of the court in refusing to sustain the motion to quash was clearly right.

This court, on the authority of United States v. Stafoff, 260 U. S. 477, 43 S. Ct. 197, 67 L. Ed. 358, has repeatedly held all revenue statutes, including section 3296, R. S. U. S., to have been re-enacted by the Willis-Campbell Act and to be in force. Neely v. United States (C. C. A.) 2 F.(2d) 849. Harrison v. United States, 25 F.(2d) 1019, decided by this court April 23, 1928.

Since the decision of the Supreme Court in the Stafoff Case, supra, where the court said, “Of course Congress may tax what it also forbids,” we can find no holding of any federal court to the effect that the revenue statutes, including section 3296, E. S., are not in force. The ease of Harrison v. United States, supra, was a ease involving section-3296.

On the question of the lawfulness of the search made, it seems clear from the evidence that the officers at no time entered the dwelling of the defendant, and only entered the fenced yard after they had good reason to believe that they saw the crime, of which the defendant was convicted, being actually committed. The woodshed, the garden, and the hog lot were not searched until after the defendant’s arrest and after his admission of guilt.

In Hester v. United States, 265 U. S. 57, 44 S. Ct. 445, 68 L. Ed. 898, it was held that, in a prosecution for a violation of this same-section 3296, admission of testimony of revenue officers as to finding moonshine whis-ky in a broken jug and other vessels near the house where the defendant resided, was not error, and that the search made was not a violation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, even though the officers held no warrant and were trespassers on the land. In the opinion Mr. Justice Holmes says:

“ * * * The special protection accorded by the Fourth Amendment to the people in their 'persons, houses, papers, and effects,’ is not extended to the open fields.”

One of the leading cases on the question of the right to 'arrest for a crime committed in the presence of officers, and on search and seizure, is McBride v. United States (C. C. A.) 284 F. 416. In that case the court lays down the rule that it is always lawful to arrest a person without warrant, where a crime is being committed in the presence of an officer, that it is lawful to enter a building without a warrant within which such crime is being perpetrated, and that, where an officer is made aware by any of his senses that a crime is being committed, it is being committed in his presence, so as to justify an arrest without a warrant.

The doctrine in the McBride Case has been approved in the following cases, among others: Bell v. United States (C. C. A.) 285 F. 145; Garske v. United States (C. C. A.) 1 F.(2d) 620; Tritico v. United States (C. C. A.) 4 F.(2d) 664; Marron v. United States (C. C. A.) 8 F.(2d) 251, affirmed in Marron v. U. S., 275 U. S. 192, 48 S. Ct. 74, 72 L. Ed. 231; Miller v. United States (C. C. A.) 9 F.(2d) 382; Dexter v. United States (C. C. A.) 12 F.(2d) 777; Lee Kwong Nom et al. v. United Slates (C. C. A.) 20 F.(2d) 470.

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Bluebook (online)
28 F.2d 695, 1928 U.S. App. LEXIS 2429, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/benton-v-united-states-ca4-1928.