Whitley v. United States

100 F.2d 504, 1938 U.S. App. LEXIS 2692
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
DecidedDecember 16, 1938
DocketNo. 8757
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 100 F.2d 504 (Whitley v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Whitley v. United States, 100 F.2d 504, 1938 U.S. App. LEXIS 2692 (5th Cir. 1938).

Opinion

HUTCHESON, Circuit Judge.

Whitley and Hill were convicted on all counts of an indictment charging them jointly: In count 1, with conspiracy to use; in counts 9 to 10 inclusive with using, the mails to defraud; in counts 12 to 15, with unlawfully misapplying, and in count 16 with embezzling, funds of an insured bank; and Whitley alone in count 11 with making false entries on the books, and in counts 17 and 18, with embezzling funds, of an insured bank. On counts 1 to 10 Whitley was sentenced to pay a fine of $5000, and to serve two years in a reformatory, and on counts 11 to 18, to pay a fine of $5000 and to serve a term of five years, beginning at the end of the two year term.

Hill was sentenced: On counts 1 to 10 to pay a fine of $5000, and to serve five years in a reformatory, and on counts 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16, to pay a fine of $5000 and to serve two years, beginning at the end of the five year term.

Each appeals, assigning as error the refusal of his motion to direct a verdict, for want of evidence, as to each count of the indictment. The sentence as to Whitley on the first ten counts is not in excess of that which could have been imposed on him under any one of them, and the same thing is true as to the sentence imposed on him under the last eight counts. If Whitley is guilty on any one of the first ten, and on any one of the last eight, the judgment as to him must be affirmed.

As to Hill, his sentence on the first ten counts is within the sentence which could have been imposed on him under any of those counts, except No. 1 for conspiracy, and his sentence on the last four counts is less than the maximum which could have been imposed on him under any one of them. If the evidence is sufficient as to him, on any of the substantive counts 2 to 10, and on any of counts 12 to 16, the judgment must be affirmed as to him, also.

The .general theory of the conspiracy and of the subsequent counts following, is that Hill and Whitley, with-others named in the indictment, entered into a conspiracy to defraud, and did use the mails, in connection with the purchase and sale, and handling, of cotton. Descending to particulars, the scheme was to be carried out in three ways. One of them, dealt with in counts 2 to 6 inclusive, was that Hill was to procure farmers to sell him cotton on the faith of drafts, with bills of lading attached, payable at the Texas State Bank & Trust Co. of Corpus Christi, of which Whitley was cashier. The cotton was to be carried to [505]*505Corpus Christi in trucks other than those the owner of which had issued the bills of lading, and on arrival was to be sold and the proceeds deposited in the Bank which, on the pretense of Hill’s large overdraft there, was through Whitley, a partner in the cotton company and a prime mover in the conspiracy, to refuse to pay the drafts and return them unpaid, but the proceeds of the cotton were to be credited to Hill’s account. As a result of that scheme, it was alleged many farmers were defrauded, by having been induced to deliver their cotton, when it was planned that they were to receive, and they did receive, no pay for it. A second manifestation of the scheme, dealt with in counts 7 and 8, was the use of fraudulent samples in the sale of off-grade cotton, whereby the buyers of the cotton were defrauded.

The third form it took dealt with in counts 9 and 10, was through the use of forged cotton tickets to cause drafts to be paid behind which there was no cotton, only forged receipts.

The eleventh count charged Whitley alone with making a false entry in the D. W. Hill cotton account in the Bank, by entering therein a pretended deposit which was never made, but was wholly fictitious.

The charge under the misapplication counts 12 to IS was, in short, that Hill and Whitley were, through the use of an account in the Bank in the name of T. C. Brown, to misuse the credit of the Bank by purchasing cotton with that credit, and misappropriating it and the proceeds. These counts dealt with cotton purchases " which passed through the Brown account, but part of the money for which was not accounted for to the Bank.

The embezzlement count, No. 16, charged both Whitley and Hill with taking fifty cotton tickets from the Bank, selling the cotton, and appropriating the proceeds. The embezzlement counts, 17 and 18, charged Whitley alone with taking cotton tickets, or warehouse receipts from the Bank, selling the cotton they called for, and appropriating the money to his own use.

As to Hill, a careful examination of the evidence leaves us in no doubt that it was sufficient to support his conviction, and the sentences imposed upon him.

On the conspiracy count, there is against him not only the evidence as to the purchases of cotton, on drafts with bills of lading attached, and the defrauding of farmers by selling the cotton and turning the drafts down, but there is the highly damaging evidence directly implicating him in the sales of cotton on forged tickets, and in the looting of the Bank through the use of the T. C. Brown account.

As to counts 2 to 6, dealing with the claimed defrauding of farmers, by inducing them to sell cotton on drafts, with bills of lading attached, Hill vigorously insists that the evidence does not sustain his conviction. Admitting that the purchases were made as charged, that the drafts were turned down by the Bank, and the farmers were not paid, Hill insists that this was farthest from his intention. Testifying that Whitley had nothing to do with the cotton company, or with his banking arrangements, but that those were made with Garrett, the President of the Bank, he declared that he had a definite understanding with him that his drafts should be honored up to $20,000, and that, though he was overdrawn when the particular purchases were made, and the drafts sent out, payment of these drafts would not have extended him beyond his $20,000 limit. He testified too, that when the cotton was sold he immediately deposited the proceeds in the Bank, expecting and understanding that the sums thus deposited, would be used in paying the cotton drafts.

But to these claims the Government replies that Hill did not call Garrett or any one else in the Bank to support his claim as to the credit arrangements he had made, and that the case stands on that point upon his unsupported testimony. While to the undoubted fact that he did deposit the proceeds of the sales in the Bank, it replies that these proceeds went to pay off his debt to the Bank, and did not go to the farmers; that he has done nothing since to pay his debt, but on the contrary, he went into business again in the fall, under some kind of arrangement to use the name of T. C. Brown, and upon the express understanding with the Bank that his old indebtedness in the D. W. Hill cotton account should be considered paid and discharged, and this, by the very money which he had received from the sale of cotton, which, under his agreement with the farmers, he had no right to sell without paying the drafts to which the bills of lading for the cotton had been attached.

Thus, the Government points out, Hill’s defense as to these counts depends entirely upon his credibility. If the jury believed his claim as to the arrangement he had [506]*506made, and that there was no intention to defraud, of course he made a good defense. If they did not, he stood convicted.

We agfee with the Government that the jury was authorized to reject his testimony; indeed, in view of the whole case, his testimony on these counts appears lacking in credibility.

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Bluebook (online)
100 F.2d 504, 1938 U.S. App. LEXIS 2692, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/whitley-v-united-states-ca5-1938.