Brauer v. States

299 F. 10, 1924 U.S. App. LEXIS 2499
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedJune 2, 1924
DocketNo. 3082
StatusPublished
Cited by2 cases

This text of 299 F. 10 (Brauer v. States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brauer v. States, 299 F. 10, 1924 U.S. App. LEXIS 2499 (3d Cir. 1924).

Opinion

WOOLLEY, Circuit Judge.

The defendants below were tried and convicted on two counts of an indictment charging, first, conspiracy to manufacture and sell distilled spirits; and second, the maintenance of a common nuisance, contrary to statutes of the United States. The story is a long one, covering the alleged conspiracy and the part each defendant played in the objective offense of manufacturing and selling a concoction made of whisky, alcohol, water, coloring matter and Bead oil. After sentence, they sued out this writ of error.

The first matter assigned as error was the refusal of the trial court to grant the defendants’ motion to quash both counts of the indictment. By this motion, in effect a demurrer, made at the opening of; the trial, the defendants maintained that the first count is defective in thirteen particulars and the second count in six. They make the same , contentions on this writ of error. .

Upon the first count we shall limit our discussion, and our decision, to one matter which appears to be decisive. “It is needless to enter into many reasons for quashing a conviction, when one alone is fully sufficient.” Lord Mansfield, Rex v. Jarvis, I Burr, part IV, 152.

This is a conspiracy count based on Section 37 of the Criminal Code (Section 5440, R. S.; Comp. Stat § 10201). It charges all the defendants with conspiring to “manufacture and sell for beverage purposes a large quantity of distilled spirits containing more than one-half of one per centum of alcohol by volume.” Here the charging part of the count ends. It then alleges five overt acts and concludes with the customary words, “contrary to the form of (the) statute iri such case made and provided.” We suppose, the statute which the count charges the defendants with conspiring to violate is the National Prohibition Act. Act of October 28, 1919, c. 85; 41 Stat. 305 (Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1923, § 1013814 et seq.). We are constrained to hold the count bad because it fails to state, as the object of the con spiracy, an offense within the statute.

The authority for this statute is the Eighteenth Amendment to the Federal Constitution, which provides:

“After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into,, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territories subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.”

Although using some of its terms, for instance, “the manufacture [and] sale” of spirits “for beverage purposes,” the count, of course, does not allege a conspiracy to violate this constitutional provision.After the adoption of the Eighteenth Amendment the statute known; [12]*12as the National Prohibition Act (supra) was enacted to carry the Amendment into effect. This is the “law of the United States” which the count charges the defendants with conspiring to violate. Does it state a case of intended violation? This depends upon whether the offense which the count charges that the defendants had conspired to commit (although not required to be stated with the particularity that would be required in a count charging the offense itself) is sufficiently identified as one within the inhibition of the statute. Williamson v. United States, 207 U. S. 447, 28 Sup. Ct. 171, 52 L. Ed. 278; Anderson v. United States, 260 Fed. 557, 558, 171 C. C. A. 341; Rulovitch v. United States (C. C. A.) 286 Fed. 315, 316, 317. Such identification, to be valid, must be more than casual; it must at least show that the offence which the conspirators contemplated committing is an offence within the terms of the statute they intended to violate.

The objective offence to which the first count of the indictment points as an act prohibited by statute is the manufacture and sale of liquor. Section 6, Title 2. Liquor is defined by Section 1 of Title 2 of the Act as follows:

“When used in Title II and Title III of this Act (I) the word ‘liquor’ or the phrase ‘intoxicating liquor’ shall be construed to include alcohol, brandy, whisky, runij gin, beer, ale, porter, and wine, and in addition thereto any spirituous, vmous, malt, or fermented liquor, liquids, and compounds, whether medicated, proprietary, patented, or not, and by whatever name called, containing one-half of one - per centum or more of alcohol by volume which are fit for use for beverage purposes':***”

' .Ih charging-conspiracy to violate this law the count alleges, in the words' of .the statute, the manufacture and sale of distilled spirits ‘■'containing more than one-half of one per centum of alcohol by volume:”, -In pleading only this much of the statute, the- count stops short of 'the offence which the statute defines, in that the statute, while using? these words, goes further and prescribes with reference to such liquor that it shall bé “fit for use for beverage purposes.” This we regard an essential element of the offence' which the count charges that :the defendants conspired to commit, and in order to identify the offence' as one within the statute, this and its other' elements must be stated, with; the certainty, though not with the particularity, required in. charging the offence itself. Pettibone v. United States, 148 U. S. 197, 13 Sup. Ct. 542, 37 L. Ed. 419; United States v. Cruikshank, 92 U. S. 542, 23 L. Ed. 588; Anderson v. United States, 260 Fed. 557, 558, 171 C. C. A. 341.

By the National Prohibition Act, Congress intended to stop the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquor of certain kinds and defined the kinds as those which, besides being of a named alcoholic volume, “are fit for use for beverage purposes.” It did not malee the same inhibition with reference to the maintenance and sale on intoxicating liquors unfit for use for beverage purposes. It left the manufacture and.sale of such liquors to be met by other laws. So far as disclosed by the uncertain words of the indictment, the defendants may have manufactured and sold such an alcoholic compound “for beverage purposes.” Whatever that offence may be — whether a higher crime [13]*13calling for heavier penalties — clearly it is not the offence denounced by the National Prohibition Act. It follows, therefore, that the first count fails to identify the objective offence of the conspiracy as one prohibited by statute and, consequently, it fails to charge the defendants with a conspiracy, under Section 37 of the Criminal Code, to commit an offence against the United States.

Nor is the count aided by Section 32 of Title 2 of the National Prohibition Act, which in certain instances makes an indictment sufficient by providing that:

“ • * * It shall not be necessary in any * * * indictment to give the name of the purchaser or to include any defensive negative averments, but it shall be sufficient to state that the act complained of was then and there prohibited and unlawful. * * *"

This section authorizes the omission of specified matters from a count charging an offence under the act itself, not under the conspiracy section of the Criminal Code. Rulovitch v. United States (C. C. A.) 286 Fed. 315, 316.

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Bluebook (online)
299 F. 10, 1924 U.S. App. LEXIS 2499, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brauer-v-states-ca3-1924.