Patmore v. United States
This text of 1 F.2d 8 (Patmore v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.
Opinion
Patmore was convicted of feloniously taking and carrying away personal property alleged to belong to the United States by virtue of seizures made under the National Prohibition Act (Comp. St. Ann. Supp. 1923, § 10138% et seq.). Error is assigned on the ground that the property taken did not belong to the United States within the meaning of section 46 of the Criminal Code (Comp. St. § 10213),1 under which the indictment was found.
The testimony shows that on March 4, 1922, two federal prohibition agents, accompanied by a deputy sheriff of Shelby county, Tenn., went to the home of Patmore’s father in Shelby county, about 12 miles from Memphis. Apparently suspecting that a still was concealed in the basement of the house, the deputy sheriff went thence to a nearby justice of the peace, obtained a warrant to search the basement, found therein and seized a still and boiler, and delivered them to the federal agents. The latter, without a search warrant found and seized another still and boiler in a dugout 200 or 300 yards in front of and across the road from the house. A Ford sedan, with 100 pounds of sugar in it, apparently intended for use in the making of illicit liquor, was found and seized in a garage near the house. Everything not already in the possession of the federal agents was turned ov.er to them by the deputy sheriff, and all the property taken was placed by them on a hired Ford truck. The deputy sheriff was asked by the federal agents to deliver it at the federal prohibition office in Memphis. While the deputy sheriff was proceeding to Memphis in the Ford sedan, following closely behind the hired truck, he was held up by the plaintiff in error with a shotgun and all the property seized was taken away from him.
The question thus presented is whether any pg;rt of the property feloniously taken by the plaintiff in error “belonged” to the United States within the meaning of section 46 of the Criminal Code. It is clear from the record that the property in the dugout was actually seized by and came into the possession of the federal agents as such, whatever may be said of the property in the basement taken under the state search warrant, or the automobile and sugar in the seizure of which the deputy sheriff, either in that capacity or as assistant to the federal agents, or both, participated. At least that part, of the property which the federal agents seized and personally placed on the truck was not put into the possession, but solely into the custody, of the deputy sheriff, for the purpose of transporting it to the federal bureau in town. Therefore whatever property or possessory rights in any of the property the federal government had acquired through the seizure by the federal agents would continue during the temporary custody thereof by the deputy sheriff.
The question then narrows itself down to whether or not property, after lawful seizure under the National Prohibition Act and while in the possession of the United States through its agents, is property belonging to the United States within the meaning of the statute in question. While in the light of the pertinent sections of the National Prohi[9]*9bition Act2 the United States clearly did acquire possession oí and certain rights in at least some oí this property, tlie majority of the court are oí the opinion that none of it in any true sense ‘•belonged” to the United States. The liquor ancl property seized under section 25 is subject to such disposition as the court may make thereof. If they are found to have been unlawfully held, the liquor and property designed for the manufacture thereof are to be destroyed, unless the court otherwise directs. Under llíese and subsequent provisions of the National Prohibition Act, it appears that some adjudication subsequent to seizure is to be made before the property -becomes forfeited to the United States, so that, regardless of whether or not after such adjudication imposing the duty of destroying the property upon the government, the property may he regarded as belonging to the United States, it cannot be ho considered prior to snob adjudication. Property so seized no more belongs to the United States than property taken on execution or attachment by the sheriff belongs to the creditor. The government, like an attaching or execution creditor, has a substantial interest in tlie property seized, with the right so to have it dealt with that the government ultimately may become (‘«titled, under sections 2<i and 27, to the property or to the proceeds thereof, or to have it destroyed ; this interest and right fall far short, however, of the ownership implied in the phrase “belonging io the United (States.”
Congress undoubtedly has jurisdiction to punish an interference with the possession, or even the custody, by the United 'States, [10]*10through its agents, of property, whether that property belongs to another or to itself, or, like liquor, subject to forfeiture, belongs in a sense to no one (see People v. Otis, 235 N. Y. 421, 139 N. E. 562); statutes for 'the protection of the mails and of the express while under government control so operate; so, too, section 65 of the Penal Code (Comp. St. § 10233).3 But both the text and the legislative history of section 46 indicate that it did not aim to protect government possession, but government property. This section was originally enacted on March 2, 1867. The Senate amendment, limiting the offense to a robbery or larceny from another “lawfully in the custody thereof,” was stricken out in conference. Congressional Globe, 39th Cong. 2d Sess. pt. 2, pp. 1246, 1977. Therefore it suffices, but it is also essential, that the property “belongs” to the United States; whether the custodian holds it lawfully for, or unlawfully, as by theft, from the government, is immaterial.
Reversed and remanded.
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1 F.2d 8, 1924 U.S. App. LEXIS 1771, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/patmore-v-united-states-ca6-1924.