A paper headed "Bill of Exceptions" not bearing the signature of
the judge, but containing at its foot these words, "Allowed and
ordered on file November 22, '83, A. B.," the trial having taken
place in June, 1883, cannot be regarded as a bill of exceptions,
because not signed by the judge, as required by § 953 of the
Revised Statutes.
An information in a suit
in rem against certain
imported goods seized as forfeited for a violation of the customs
revenue laws, alleged an entry of the goods, which were subject to
duties, with intent to defraud the revenue by false and fraudulent
invoices, by means whereof the United States were deprived of the
lawful duties accruing upon the goods embraced in the invoices. The
answer of the claimant denied that the goods became "forfeited in
manner and form as in said information is alleged." At the trial,
the jury rendered
"a verdict for the informants, and against the claimant for the
condemnation of the goods mentioned in the information, and that
the goods were brought in with intent to defraud the United
States."
The decree set forth that, the jury having "by their verdict
found for the United States condemning the said goods," they were
"accordingly condemned as forfeited to the United States."
Held:
(1) The verdict was a sufficient compliance with the requirement
of § 16 of the Act of June 22 1874, c. 391, 18 Stat. 189, that in
order to a forfeiture, the jury should find that "the alleged acts
were done with an actual intention to defraud the United
States."
(2) The judgment was sufficient without reciting any special
finding by the jury as to an intent to defraud.
Page 125 U. S. 241
Under § 12 of the Act of June 22, 1874, c. 391, 18 Stat. 188,
merchandise can be forfeited independently of the imposition of the
fine mentioned in that section.
In rem for the condemnation of four cases of goods
seized for forfeiture for violation of the customs revenue laws.
Judgment in the district court condemning the goods, which was
affirmed in the circuit court. The claimant sued out this writ of
error.
MR. JUSTICE BLATCHFORD delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is a suit
in rem, brought by the United States in
the District Court of the United States for the Southern District
of New York against four cases of merchandise, seized for
forfeiture for violations of the customs revenue laws. One of them
was imported into the port of New York on the 6th of March, 1882,
and the other three were imported on the 10th of March, 1882. The
information proceeds against them for violations of §§ 2839 and
2864 of the Revised Statutes, and of the twelfth section of the Act
of June 22, 1874, c. 391, 18 Stat. 188. The latter section is in
these words:
"SEC. 12. That any owner, importer, consignee, agent, or other
person who shall, with intent to defraud the revenue, make or
attempt to make any entry of imported merchandise by means of any
fraudulent or false invoice, affidavit, or letter, or paper, or by
means of any false statement, written or verbal, or who shall be
guilty of any willful act or omission by means whereof the United
States shall be deprived of the lawful duties, or any portion
thereof, accruing upon the merchandise, or any portion thereof,
embraced or referred to in such invoice, affidavit, letter, paper,
or statement, or affected by such act or omission, shall, for each
offense, be fined in any sum not exceeding five thousand dollars
nor less than fifty dollars, or be imprisoned for any time not
exceeding two years, or both, and in addition to
Page 125 U. S. 242
such fine, such merchandise shall be forfeited; which forfeiture
shall only apply to the whole of the merchandise in the case or
package containing the particular article or articles of
merchandise to which such fraud or alleged fraud relates, and
anything contained in any act which provides for the forfeiture or
confiscation of an entire invoice, in consequence of any item or
items contained in the same being undervalued, be, and the same is
hereby, repealed."
As the material questions in the case arise in respect to § 12
of the act of 1874, it will not be necessary to refer particularly
to the counts founded on the sections of the Revised Statutes.
One count in regard to three of the cases alleges that on or
about the 10th of March, 1882, the owner, importer, consignee, or
agents of the merchandise, or some other person or persons now
unknown to the collector and to the attorney for the United States,
with intent to defraud the revenue, made or attempted to make an
entry of the merchandise, which was then and there subject to
duties and had been imported into the United States, within the
District of the City of New York, from Paris, a foreign place, by
way of Havre, in the vessel
Amerique, by means of false
and fraudulent invoices, affidavits, letters, and papers and by
means of false statements, written and verbal, by means whereof the
United States were deprived of the lawful duties, or a portion
thereof, accruing upon the merchandise, or a portion thereof,
embraced and referred to in such invoices, affidavits, letters, and
papers, and such false statements, the cases whose contents are
proceeded against for forfeiture containing particular articles of
merchandise to which said alleged frauds related, contrary to said
twelfth section.
Another count in regard to the three cases alleges that on or
about the 10th of March, 1882, the owner, importer, consignee, or
agents of the merchandise, or some other person or persons now
unknown to the collector and to the said attorney, with intent to
defraud the revenue, made or attempted to make an entry of the
merchandise, which was then and there subject to duties, and had
been imported into the United States within said district, from
Paris, a foreign place, by way of Havre, in the ship
Amerique, and that the said owner, importer,
Page 125 U. S. 243
consignee, or agents and other person or persons unknown was and
were guilty of certain acts and omissions whereby the United States
were deprived of the lawful duties, or a portion thereof, accruing
upon the merchandise, or a portion thereof, affected by said acts
and omissions, the cases whose contents are proceeded against for
forfeiture containing particular articles of merchandise to which
said alleged frauds and said acts and omissions related, contrary
to said twelfth section.
There were two similar counts in regard to the fourth case.
The counts founded on § 2839 of the Revised Statutes allege a
failure to invoice the goods according to their actual cost at the
place of exportation, with design to avoid the duties thereon, and
those founded on § 2864 allege an entry of, or attempt to enter,
the goods by means of false invoices and papers.
A claim was interposed by one Origet, as owner of the goods, and
an answer denying that the goods became "forfeited in manner and
form as in said information is alleged."
The case was tried by a jury, and the minutes of the trial show
that the jury rendered
"a verdict for the informants and against the claimant for the
condemnation of the goods mentioned in the information, and that
the goods were brought in with intent to defraud the United
States."
Thereupon a decree was entered which set forth that the jury,
having "by their verdict found for the United States condemning the
said goods," they were "accordingly condemned as forfeited to the
United States." On a writ of error sued out by the claimant from
the circuit court, that court affirmed the decree of the district
court and remanded the case to the latter court for the execution
of its decree. The claimant has brought the case to this Court by a
writ of error.
The counsel for the claimant seeks to raise objections to the
admission of certain evidence at the trial, and to the exclusion of
certain other evidence, upon what appears in a paper found in the
record and headed "Bill of Exceptions." But the paper does not bear
the signature of the district judge. The trial took place on the
8th of June, 1883. At the foot of the paper referred to appears the
following: "Allowed and ordered on
Page 125 U. S. 244
file November 22, '83. A. B." This cannot be regarded as a
proper signature by the judge to a bill of exceptions, nor can the
paper be regarded for the purposes of review as a bill of
exceptions. To make it clear that a seal to a bill of exceptions
was not necessary to its validity, Congress, by § 4 of the Act of
June 1, 1872, c. 255, 17 Stat. 197, now § 953 of the Revised
Statutes, enacted as follows:
"A bill of exceptions allowed in any cause shall be deemed
sufficiently authenticated if signed by the judge of the court in
which the cause was tried or by the presiding judge thereof, if
more than one judge sat on the trial of the cause, without any seal
of court or judge being annexed thereto."
This provision merely dispensed with the seal. The necessity for
the signature still remains. We cannot regard the initials "A. B."
as the signature of the judge, or as a sufficient authentication of
the bill of exceptions, or as sufficient evidence of its allowance
by the judge or the court. Therefore the questions purporting to be
raised by the paper cannot be considered.
An objection is made to the verdict, founded upon § 16 of the
Act of June 22, 1874, c. 391, 18 Stat. 189, which is in these
words:
"SEC 16. That in all actions, suits, and proceedings in any
court of the United States now pending or hereafter commenced or
prosecuted to enforce or declare the forfeiture of any goods,
wares, or merchandise or to recover the value thereof or any other
sum alleged to be forfeited by reason of any violation of the
provisions of the customs revenue laws or any of such provisions,
in which action, suit, or proceeding an issue or issues of fact
shall have been joined, it shall be the duty of the court, on the
trial thereof, to submit to the jury, as a distinct and separate
proposition, whether the alleged acts were done with an actual
intention to defraud that United States, and to require upon such
proposition a special finding by such jury, or, if such issues be
tried by the court without a jury, it shall be the duty of the
court to pass upon and decide such proposition as a distinct and
separate finding of fact, and in such cases, unless intent to
defraud shall be so found, no fine, penalty, or forfeiture shall be
imposed. "
Page 125 U. S. 245
The objection made is that the verdict states "that the goods
were brought in with intent to defraud the United States," and does
not state, in the language of § 16, that the acts alleged in the
information were done with such intent. But we are of opinion that
this objection has no force. It is evident that under the
information and the answer, the question of intent to defraud,
submitted to the jury and passed upon by them, must have been as to
the intent to defraud in the respects set forth in the information
and denied by the answer, and the finding "that the goods were
brought in with intent to defraud the United States" must, in
respect to the counts founded on § 12 of the act of 1874, be
regarded as a finding that the acts alleged in those counts were
done with such intent to defraud. The words "brought in" may fairly
be construed as having reference to the entering or attempting to
enter the goods by the means specified in those counts, as the
entry of the goods is the necessary means provided by law for
bringing the goods within the control of the importer, so that they
may be employed by him for the purposes for which they were
imported. There is no count in the information founded upon an
unlawful importation or bringing in of the merchandise in any other
sense than that it was entered or attempted to be entered by means
of the false papers mentioned in the information.
It is also objected that the judgment of the district court only
recites that the jury "found for the United States condemning the
said goods," and does not recite any special finding as to an
intent to defraud. This objection is overruled for the reasons set
forth in the opinion in the case of
Friedenstein v. United
States, just decided,
ante, p.
125 U. S. 224.
It is also made a point in the brief of the counsel for the
claimant that the district court had no jurisdiction of the cause
of action set forth in the information because the only method of
obtaining a condemnation of goods for the causes mentioned in § 12
of the act of 1874 is in the course of a proceeding by indictment
against an offender; that a proceeding against the goods is only
authorized by that section as an incident of the prosecution of an
offender by an indictment;
Page 125 U. S. 246
that the forfeiture of the goods, like the fine and the
imprisonment prescribed, is a part of the punishment upon a
conviction on a criminal prosecution; that the forfeiture is
imposed only as an addition to a fine, where that is imposed, and
that the merchandise cannot be forfeited independently of the
imposition of the fine. But we are of opinion that this is not the
proper construction of the section. The fine or the imprisonment or
both are to follow conviction on a criminal prosecution of the
owner, importer, consignee, agent, or other person who does the act
forbidden by the section with the intent therein mentioned. The
section then goes on to say that "in addition to such fine, such
merchandise shall be forfeited." The sole meaning of this is that
the person owning the merchandise shall lose it by forfeiture, in
addition to such possible loss as may come to him by the
imposition, if he is the offender, of the pecuniary fine, on the
criminal persecution against him. But the merchandise is to be
forfeited irrespective of any criminal prosecution. The forfeiture
accrues to the United States on the commission or omission of the
acts specified. No condition is attached to the imposition of the
forfeiture. The section does not say that the merchandise shall be
forfeited only on the conviction of some offender, whether the
owner of the merchandise or one of the other persons named in the
section. The person punished for the offense may be an entirely
different person from the owner of the merchandise, or any person
interested in it. The forfeiture of the goods of the principal can
form no part of the personal punishment of his agent.
The construction contended for by the claimant would require the
imposition of the forfeiture only when a fine was imposed, and not
only could the forfeiture not be imposed where imprisonment was
awarded, but the language would require that on a criminal
conviction of the agent, the merchandise of the principal should be
forfeited in order to allow of the imposition of any fine on the
convicted agent. Again, two persons, a consignee and an agent,
aside from the owner, might each of them be guilty, and each of
them be separately prosecuted criminally, and if the first one
convicted were
Page 125 U. S. 247
fined and the goods were forfeited, the second one tried could
not, on conviction, be punished by a fine, because, the merchandise
having been already forfeited, it could not be a second time
forfeited, and so the requirement of the statute that the
merchandise should be forfeited in addition to the imposition of
the fine could not be carried out. We conclude therefore that the
forfeiture imposed by the section is no part of the punishment for
the offense.
In the case of
Coffey v. United States, 116 U.
S. 436,
116 U. S. 443,
where § 3257 of the Revised Statutes imposed on a distiller for
forbidden acts the forfeiture of his distillery and also a fine and
imprisonment, this Court held, on the authority of
The
Palmyra, 12 Wheat. 1,
25 U. S. 14-15,
that the forfeiture was to be enforced by a civil suit
in
rem, and the fine and imprisonment in a criminal
proceeding.
The decree of the circuit court is affirmed.