United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

Caha v. United States, 152 U.S. 211 (1894)

Caha v. United States

No. 1001

Argued January 15-16, 1894

Decided March 5, 1894

152 U.S. 211

Syllabus

The District Court of the United States in the District of Kansas had jurisdiction over a prosecution for the crime of perjury, in violation of the

Page 152 U. S. 212

provisions of Rev.Stat. § 5392, committed in what is now the Territory of Oklahoma before the passage of the act creating that territory, although the indictment was not found until after the passage of that act.

Within the scope of Rev.Stat. § 5392, local land officers, in hearing and deciding upon a contest in respect of a homestead entry, constitute a competent tribunal, and the contest so pending before them is a case in which the laws of the United States authorize an oath to be administered.

False swearing in a land contest before a local land office in respect of a homestead entry is perjury within the scope of Rev.Stat. § 5392.

The courts of the United States take judicial notice of rules and regulations prescribed by the Department of the Interior in respect of contests before the Land Office.

Wherever, by the express language of any act of Congress, power is entrusted to either of the principal departments of government to prescribe rules and regulations for the transaction of business in which the public is interested and in respect to which they have a right to participate and by which they are to be controlled, the rules and regulations prescribed in pursuance of such authority become a mass of that body of public records of which the courts take judicial notice.

The case is stated in the opinion.