MacDaniel v. United States

294 F. 769, 2 Ohio Law. Abs. 347, 1924 U.S. App. LEXIS 2958
Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit·Decided January 8, 1924·No. No. 3839·Published·Cited by 26 cases

Opinion

WESTENHAVER, District Judge.

The indictment charges Charles C. MacNabb, M. J. Mulholland, and the plaintiff in error, J. E. Mac-Daniel with the crime of criminal congpiracy. The offense they conspired to commit is averred to be a violation of section 213, Criminal Code (Comp. St. § 10383), viz.: That they conspired to deposit and caused to be deposited, and knowingly sent or caused to be sent, letters, packages, and tickets concerning a lottery offering prizes depending in whole or in part upon lottery or chance, in the mails of the United States. This lottery concerning which the letters and packages were mailed need not be described in detail, because no criticism is made as to the sufficiency of the indictment, nor is it denied that the scheme was in fact a lottery. It is sufficient to say that the lottery 'was of the familiar kind popularly known as baseball pools. MacNabb and Mul-holland entered pleas of guilty and were not put on trial. MacDaniel was tried alone, found guilty, and sentenced, and prosecutes error.

The errors assigned and relied on pertain to the admission of certain evidence, and certain observations with rpspect thereto by the trial judge in his charge. Of these, three only were urged in oral argument or call for separate comment.

1. Harry Hopf, a United States postal inspector, called on behalf of the government, identified Exhibits A and B, the lottery tickets specially set forth in the indictment, an envelope in which thej'- were inclosed, and other inclosures, as having been delivered through the United States mail to one Henry Janser, at Hamilton, Ohio. He then testified that on August 9, 1921, MacNabb admitted to him that he had mailed this envelope and its contents to Janser. This testimony as to tliis admission was objected to and exception notéd. The Court in his charge said:

“If there was a conspiracy, and the mails were to he used, and if MacNabb was a member of that conspiracy, then the mails were used, because it is un-contradicted here that MacNabb used them.”

This 'comment was also excepted to on the ground that there is no evidence in the record showing that MacNabb ever used the mail. Comment is made in counsel’s brief on a similar observation with respect to like documents mailed to Mike Doda and Eranlc Violet, but no exception was taken .thereto, and no objection or exception appears to have been taken to the introduction of their testimony.

It is urged in support of this assignment of error that the oiily evidence of mailing is MacNabb’s admission, and this admission, it is urged, was not competent against MacDaniel, the only person on trial. It is immaterial, in our view of the case, to determine whether Mac-Nabb’s admission was made in his own interest, or touching exclusive[771] ly his own affairs, and not in furtherance of the alleged conspiracy, or was made after the conspiracy ended. 0If it was improper to receive this admission when offered, the error was later fully cured. Jan-ser’s testimony, introduced later, and not denied, shows clearly that .this documentary evidence was in fact mailed or caused to be mailed by MacNabb. The envelope containing the inclosures was received by Janser from the United States mails in the presence of Hopf, and contained the usual post office stamps showing its transmission in the usual course. Among the inclosures was a return envelope addressed to MacNabb at his Dayton place of business, and a bill for the inclosed tickets and a blank form for reports of sales. Janser testifies thqt he had known MacNabb and had similar business transactions with him since early in the spring; that during the intervening period he had received similar mail matter through the mails; that he had filled out similar blank reports and inclosed them with remittances to Mac-Nabb’s Dayton address; that for part of the period he had had similar transactions by going to Dayton and meeting MacNabb at the given address, obtaining like lottery tickets and blanks, delivering the same to MacNabb, and making settlements by paying money. In view of this long-continued course of business, and the personal participation therein of MacNabb, and the recognition by him that he was Janser’s cor- . respondent at Dayton, no other inference is permissible than that this last parcel of mail matter was either mailed or caused to be mailed by him.

2. The witness Hopf also produced and identified certain other lottery tickets, similar to Exhibits A and 13, and reports and forms like those mailed to Janser, which he had obtained by search of MacNabb’s place of business at Dayton. This search was made after MacNabb had been lawfully arrested, but pursuant to a search warrant which it is said is void, because issued without a sufficient supporting affidavit. Over objection and exception this evidence was admitted, on the theory that any objection to the manner in which the evidence was obtained was available only to MacNabb, who was not on trial, and was not available to MacDaniel.

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MacDaniel v. United States, 294 F. 769, 2 Ohio Law. Abs. 347, 1924 U.S. App. LEXIS 2958 (6th Cir. 1924).

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