United States v. Hausman

4 D. Haw. 210
CourtDistrict Court, D. Hawaii
DecidedMarch 25, 1913
StatusPublished

This text of 4 D. Haw. 210 (United States v. Hausman) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Hawaii primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Hausman, 4 D. Haw. 210 (D. Haw. 1913).

Opinion

Clemons, J.

The defendant moves to dismiss the indictment on the grounds, in substance (I) that it was “found upon evidence not competent or legal testimony against the accused, in that the evidence consisted principally of a confession and admissions made by him in the presence and hearing of the United States attorney and the collector of customs, which confession and admissions were induced and obtained by and through certain inducements held out and extended to the defendant by the United States attorney;” (II) that “the indictment was obtained by confessions and admissions of the defendant . . . not voluntary and made by reason of certain inducements and representations made to him by the United States attorney;” and (III) that “said indictment was not presented and found upon legal and competent testimony but upon testimony obtained by improper means, and said indictment for said reasons is invalid and should be dismissed.”

In an affidavit in support of this motion, the defendant deposes to the following facts (in paraphrase): The United States attorney, on the afternoon of February 7, 1913, in the lobby of a Honolulu hotel, approached the de[212]*212fendant and presented a card bearing the defendant’s name and place of business in Seattle. Whereupon the attorney said he had reasons to believe defendant had opium concealed in his trunk and asked if he had any objections to his examining it. The defendant replied that there were no objections and invited the attorney to the defendant’s room upstairs. Whereupon the attorney said “that he would make it as light as possible; that he would use his influence and make the offense as light as possible, and would do all he could for” the defendant. The defendant and the attorney, accompanied by the collector of customs, then went to this room, and after entering the defendant said, “it was a sad day for him, he had just received a letter from his wife congratulating him on his birthday, which letter he handed to the attorney, who asked to be allowed to take it home to read and [said] that he felt deeply touched about it and the defendant had his sympathy.” After conversing with the collector he also said “he saw no reason in sending this man to jail, let him remain here under guard.” The collector acquiesced and again in the same room the attorney told the defendant “he would make it light for him and do all he could for him.” “Any confession or admission” which the defendant “may have then made was induced and brought about” by the aforesaid “conduct, representations, and inducements” of the attorney, and was “made of and concerning the opium which was found in the defendant’s trunk by the attorney and the collector, and which the defendant after opening said trunk himself told them was inside said trunk, were not free and voluntary admissions and confessions of his doings in, about, of, and concerning said opium.” The attorney did not tell the defendant, or in any way warn him, that any admission or confession then made would be used in evidence against him, either before the grand jury or upon his trial. And on the next day, the attorney called him from the United State’s marshal’s office into the attorney’s office [213]*213and, by reason of the inducements and representations made to the defendant on the day before, the defendant made certain other statements and answered certain other questions propounded by the attorney, and all of said statements, admissions, and answers were made'while laboring under the effect of the inducements and representations so made to him by the attorney in the hotel lobby and in his room in the hotel, and but for said inducements and representations he would not have answered any of said questions propounded at the attorney's office. And the defendant was not warned that any said answer would be used against him to obtain any indictment or upon his trial.

The motion concludes with a prayer that the proceedings before the grand jury “may be fully inquired into,” and that the district attorney be “orally examined in this court as to said proceedings, and as to what witnesses were examined, and as to what evidence was given” before the grand juyy-

[1] Fear was clearly not the inducement to any confession made by the defendant. We may, therefore, for sake of argument, assume the indictment to have been founded on “hope of favor,” and consider only whether the facts stated constitute such an inducement of hope as to make the confession incompetent evidence of guilt. ■ Now, the only statements of the district attorney upon which a hope could have been founded are: (1) “That he would make it as light as possible and that he would do all he could for” the defendant; the affidavit failing to explain the meaning of the word “it” in the phrase “make it as light as possible,” though the inference that it means “punishment” is probably clear enough. (2) “That he would make it light” . . . “and do all he could for” the defendant. The first statement was made by the attorney after the defendant, in response to the attorney's having said he had reasons to believe opium was concealed in the [214]*214trunk and his having asked if defendant had any objections to its examination, had disclaimed any objections and invited the attorney to come to his room. The attorney’s offer, immediately subsequent, of “making it light,” and “using his influence,” and “doing all he could,” was, therefore, if made, purely gratuitous; it could not, in the nature of things, be called an inducement. The second statement, also, was made after the defendant had said he had no objections to an examination of the trunk, and had invited the attorney to his room, but perhaps (though the point is left unexplained) not before the defendant’s actual opening of the trunk and disclosure of its contents. It may be, that defendant’s. counsel would have it inferred, that the mere presence of these officers of the law induced a fear or a hope of favor such as to stamp any consequent confession as involuntary. Any inference of that kind would be an application of the law of confessions more in accord with the “excesses of by-gone practice” than suited to the present common-sense view. 1 Wigmore, Evidence, chap. xxviii, at length; Id., sec. 865, 867; 2 Wharton, Criminal Evidence, 10th ed., sec. 705, par. 2, (a) and (e). At all events, anything the district attorney may have said to raise defendant’s hope of favor, was the sequel and not the inducement of his confession: the defendant had already said in effect, in reply to the suggestion of there being opium in his trunk, “you may examine my trunk; come to my room and see whatever its contents may disclose.” Its contents disclosed the possession of opium, which mere possession is enough to justify an indictment. And this disclosure was only the carrying out of what the defendant had himself already, and voluntarily, suggested. Accordingly it is held that the defendant’s affidavit does not make out a case of an incompetent confession.

[2] Though the motion is thus untenable even on the assumption, in defendant’s favor, of a confession’s having actually been in evidence before the grand jury, still it [215]*215should be noted that in any event the affidavit fails to show this fact/ — which appears only in the list 'of grounds annexed to the motion.

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Bluebook (online)
4 D. Haw. 210, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-hausman-hid-1913.