1. A period of less than five years will not bar a prosecution
for effecting an entry of goods at the custom house by a fraudulent
invoice of them, and a false classification as to their quality and
value.
2. A conspiracy to defraud the United States of the duties on
certain imported goods is not "a crime arising under the revenue
laws," and the persons charged therewith cannot be prosecuted
therefor unless they be indicted within three years next after the
alleged committing thereof.
An indictment, consisting of four counts, was found Feb. 3,
1877, against Hiram Hirsch and others, who pleaded that the
offenses therein charged had been committed more than three years
before the finding of the indictment.
The first count was drawn under sec. 5440, Rev. State., and
charges the defendant with a conspiracy, entered into on the first
day of September, 1873, to defraud the United States out of the
duties on certain described merchandise to be thereafterwards
imported into the United States.
The second count charges a conspiracy, entered into on the
thirteenth day of September, 1873, to defraud the United States out
of duties on certain merchandise theretofore imported into the
United States. The remaining counts were drawn under sec. 5445, and
charge that the defendants knowingly effected an entry of the goods
at the custom house by a fraudulent invoice of them and by a false
classification as to their quality and value.
The United States demurred to the plea, and the judges of the
circuit court were divided in opinion upon the question
"whether the trial is barred by sec. 1044, the indictment having
been found more than three years after the commission of the
alleged offense, or whether it is within the provisions of sec.
1046, as having been found within five years next after the
commission of the alleged offense."
It is enacted by sec. 1044 that
"No person shall be prosecuted for any offense, not capital,
except as provided in sec.
Page 100 U. S. 34
1046, unless the indictment is found within three years next
after such offense shall have been committed,"
and by sec. 1046, that
"No person shall be prosecuted, tried, or punished for any crime
arising under the revenue laws or the slave trade laws of the
United States unless the indictment is found or the information is
instituted within five years next after the committing of such
crime."
MR. JUSTICE MILLER, after stating the case, delivered the
opinion of the Court.
The question before us is whether the indictment describes
crimes arising under the revenue laws of the United States.
There can be little doubt that the crimes set out in the third
and fourth counts, conforming as they do to the description of the
offense found in sec. 5445 of a false classification of goods as to
value and quality and effecting an entry of goods at less than the
true weight or measure, arise under the revenue laws. The section,
intended solely for the protection of the revenue arising from
customs, was originally the third section of the Act of March 3,
1863, entitled "An Act to prevent frauds upon the revenue, to
provide for the more certain and speedy collection of claims
against the United States, and for other purposes." 12 Stat. 737.
It is beyond question a revenue law, and the offense defined by it
is therefore a crime arising under the revenue laws of the United
States.
With regard to the first two counts, the answer is not so
clear.
The gravamen of the offense here is the conspiracy. For this
there must be more than one person engaged. Although by the statute
something more than the common law definition of a conspiracy is
necessary to complete the offense, to-wit some act done to effect
the object of the conspiracy, it remains true that the combination
of minds in an unlawful purpose is the foundation of the offense,
and that a party who did not join in the previous conspiracy cannot
under this section be convicted on the overt act.
Page 100 U. S. 35
Nor does the section, as found in the Revised Statutes or in the
original act, make any special reference to the revenue or to the
revenue laws. Its language is:
"If two or more persons conspire either to commit any offense
against the United States or to defraud the United States in any
manner or for any purpose, and one or more such parties do any act
to effect the object of the conspiracy, all the parties shall be
liable,"
&c.
The conspiracy here described is a conspiracy to commit any
offense against the United States. The fraud mentioned is any fraud
against them. It may be against the coin or consist in cheating the
government of its land or other property. The offense may be
treason, and persons have been convicted under this statute for a
conspiracy to do the acts which constitute treason against the
United States.
Since, then, the section does not mention the revenue or the
revenue laws, but in terms includes every form of conspiracy
against the United States and every form of conspiracy to defraud
them, it is difficult to see how the crimes it defines and which
are punishable under it can be said to arise under the revenue
laws. Specific acts which are violations of the laws made to
protect the revenue may be said to be crimes arising under the
revenue laws, as are those in the third and fourth counts; but a
conspiracy to defraud the government, though it may be directed to
the revenue as its object, is punishable by the general law against
all conspiracies, and can hardly be said in any just sense to arise
under the revenue laws.
In support of the opposite view, it is said that sec. 5440 was
originally sec. 30 of the Act of March 2, 1867, 14 Stat. 484, which
was a revenue law, and that this section must be held also to be a
revenue law.
It must be admitted that in construing any part of the Revised
Statutes, it is admissible and often necessary to recur to its
connection in the act of which it was originally a part.
The force of the argument arising from finding an enactment in a
statute directed mainly to a particular subject is much diminished
by our experience of the manner in which
Page 100 U. S. 36
incongruous legislation is combined in the same bill as passed
by the two Houses of Congress. The important principle,
revolutionary in the law of evidence, by which parties to suits and
persons having a pecuniary interest in the results are made
competent witnesses is found in a few words inserted as a proviso
to an appropriation bill.
The act of 1867 is entitled "An Act to amend existing laws
relating to internal revenue, and for other purposes," and it
consists of thirty-four sections. Every section except the one
defining conspiracies has reference to internal revenue, and if the
argument is worth anything, the act must be limited to that kind of
revenue.
But the title indicates that other purposes than revenue may be
found in the provisions of the act.
Looking, then, to the section in question, which makes no
mention of revenue whatever, but enacts in the most general terms a
law against conspiracies, we are of opinion that one of the other
purposes of the act was to adopt this general penal provision, and
that an offense punishable under that section alone is not a crime
arising under the revenue laws, though the overt act necessary to
be alleged may be one affecting the revenue of the United
States.
It will be certified to the circuit court that the plea of the
statute of limitations of three years is good in bar of the first
two counts of the indictment, and is bad as to the third and
fourth, and it is
So ordered.
