Section 3116 of the Internal Revenue Code makes it "unlawful" to
possess any property intended for use in violating the provisions
of "this part" or the internal revenue laws, and provides for the
seizure and forfeiture of such property. Section 3115 of the same
"part" makes punishable by fine or imprisonment or both a violation
of "any of the provisions of this part" for which no "special
penalty" is provided.
Held: read together, §§ 3115 and 3116 make it a
criminal offense to possess property intended for use in producing
liquor without the payment of taxes thereon in violation of the
Code. Pp.
347 U. S.
381-386.
(a) A different result is not required by the facts that § 3115
is applicable only where no "special penalty" is provided for the
offense, and § 3116 provides for the seizure and forfeiture of such
property. P.
347 U. S.
385.
(b) Nor is a different result required by the fact that § 3116
is captioned "Forfeitures and seizures." Pp.
347 U. S.
385-386.
Reversed.
MR. JUSTICE CLARK delivered the opinion of the Court.
The sole question here is whether §§ 3116 and 3115 of the
Internal Revenue Code make it a criminal offense to possess
property intended for use in producing nontax-paid distilled
spirits in violation of the Code. Appellee
Page 347 U. S. 382
was indicted under these sections for willfully and knowingly
possessing 800 pounds of sugar and parts of a still for the
proscribed purpose. On motion the District Court, relying on dictum
in a court of appeals decision, [
Footnote 1] dismissed the indictment on the ground that §
3116 is "preventative and remedial, rather than criminal, and that
it does not define a criminal offense." The Government appealed
directly to this Court under the Criminal Appeals Act, 18 U.S.C. §
3731. 346 U.S. 930.
Section 3116 of the Internal Revenue Code is captioned
"Forfeitures and seizures," and provides in pertinent part:
"It shall be unlawful to have or possess any liquor or property
intended for use in violating the provisions of this part, or the
internal revenue laws . . . and no property rights shall exist in
any such liquor or property. . . . Nothing in this section shall in
any manner limit or affect any criminal or forfeiture provision of
the internal revenue laws, or of any other law. . . ."
The section also provides for search warrants and for procedure
in seizure and forfeiture. Section 3115 bears the caption
"Penalties," and provides that anyone violating any of the
provisions of "this part" for which offense a special penalty is
not prescribed "shall be liable, for the first offense, to a
penalty of not exceeding $1,000, or imprisonment not exceeding
thirty days, or both. . . ." The
Page 347 U. S. 383
two sections are included within the same "part" of the Code.
[
Footnote 2]
The appellant's position is that § 3115 makes violation of any
of the provisions of "this part" a criminal offense punishable by
fine and imprisonment; § 3116 contains a provision making it
unlawful to possess property intended
Page 347 U. S. 384
for use in violating the provisions of that part or the internal
revenue laws; hence, the indictment alleging a violation of §§ 3116
and 3115 by such possession charges a crime. We agree, and so hold.
We think the plain language of the two sections, read together, can
lead only to the conclusion that the acts proscribed in § 3116 not
only may result in forfeiture, but likewise are made criminal and
punishable under the general penalty provisions of § 3115.
The sections here involved were borrowed, with changes
insignificant for present purposes, from the National Prohibition
Act of 1919, 41 Stat. 305
et seq. There the sections
appeared as §§ 25 (
compare § 3116) and 29
(
compare § 3115) of Title II, and presented a statutory
pattern virtually identical to the present one. It is most
persuasive that the courts consistently upheld criminal
prosecutions brought under these sections for the analogous act of
possessing property designed for the
Page 347 U. S. 385
manufacture of liquor intended for use in violation of Title II
of the Prohibition Act. [
Footnote
3]
This consistency of interpretation, followed by Congress'
utilization in the Code of the same provisions, is also helpful in
dealing with the limitation in § 3115 which makes the penalties of
that section applicable only where no "special penalty" is provided
for the offense. As a
de novo proposition, it might be
argued that, in § 3116, a special penalty, forfeiture, is provided.
But this argument was available with equal force under the
Prohibition Act, and appears to have barred no prosecution.
Moreover, § 3116 contains a provision that "Nothing in this section
shall in any manner limit or affect any criminal . . . provision of
the internal revenue laws." This would seem to settle the
point.
Clearly, Congress may impose both a criminal and a civil
sanction in respect to the same act; this is neither unusual nor
constitutionally objectionable.
See Helvering v. Mitchell,
303 U. S. 391,
303 U. S.
399�400. Likewise it is common in drafting legislation
to declare certain acts unlawful in one section and set forth
penalties for their commission in another. [
Footnote 4]
The only suggestion on the face of the statute that § 3116 was
meant to be remedial, and nothing more, comes from its caption,
"Forfeitures and seizures," supplied by the codifiers in 1939. But,
in enacting the Code, Congress provided that
"The arrangement and classification of the several provisions of
the Internal Revenue Title have been made for the purpose of a more
convenient and
Page 347 U. S. 386
orderly arrangement of the same, and therefore no inference,
implication, or presumption of legislative construction shall be
drawn or made by reason of the location or grouping of any
particular section or provision or portion thereof, nor shall any
outline, analysis, cross reference, or descriptive matter relating
to the contents of said Title be given any legal effect."
53 Stat. 1a. To accomplish its primary purpose of bringing
together all operative revenue laws and making them more
comprehensible, the Code made "liberal use of catchwords."
[
Footnote 5] Typically, § 3116
is included in a subchapter entitled "Industrial Alcohol" and in a
part entitled "Industrial Alcohol Plants"; yet, even under a most
narrow interpretation of its terms, the section is in no sense
limited to industrial alcohol.
So far as light is to be had from legislative history, it is
meager and inconclusive, in no way militating against the meaning
we attribute to the statute.
Reversed.
[
Footnote 1]
Kent v. United States, 1946, 157 F.2d 1.
See also
United States v. Windle, 158 F.2d 196 (1946). In those cases,
the Government had invoked only the forfeiture provisions of the
section; as applied to such a civil proceeding, characterization of
the section as preventative and remedial was obviously accurate.
The two reported cases which previously have faced squarely the
present question have upheld the indictments.
United States v.
Blair, 97 F. Supp. 718 (1951);
United States v.
Harvin, 91 F. Supp. 249 (1950).
See also Godette v. United
States, 199 F.2d 331 (1952), in which the present issue
apparently was not raised.
[
Footnote 2]
Part II ("Industrial Alcohol Plants") of Subchapter C
("Industrial Alcohol") of Chapter 26 ("Liquor"). The full text of
the two sections is as follows:
"§ 3115. Penalties --"
"(a) Violations as to operation of plants or unlawful withdrawal
of taxable alcohol."
"Whoever operates an industrial alcohol plant or a denaturing
plant without complying with the provisions of this part and lawful
regulations made thereunder, or whoever withdraws or attempts to
withdraw or secure tax free any alcohol subject to tax, or whoever
otherwise violates any of the provisions of this part or of
regulations lawfully made thereunder shall be liable, for the first
offense, to a penalty of not exceeding $1,000, or imprisonment not
exceeding thirty days, or both, and for a second or cognate offense
to a penalty of not less than $100 nor more than $10,000, and to
imprisonment of not less than thirty days nor more than one year.
It shall be lawful for the Commissioner in all cases of second or
cognate offense to refuse to issue for a period of one year a
permit for the manufacture or use of alcohol upon the premises of
any person responsible in any degree for the violation."
"(b) Violations in general."
"Any person violating the provisions of this part or of any
regulations issued thereunder, for which offense a special penalty
is not prescribed, shall be liable to the penalty or penalties
prescribed in subsection (a). It shall be the duty of the
prosecuting officer to ascertain, in the case of every violation of
this part or the regulations made thereunder, for which offense a
special penalty is not prescribed, whether the defendant has been
previously convicted and to plead the prior conviction in the
affidavit, information, or indictment."
"(c) Previous conviction."
"If any act or offense is a violation of this part, and also of
any other law in regard to the manufacture or taxation of, or
traffic in, intoxicating liquor, a conviction for such act or
offense under the one shall be a bar to prosecution therefor under
the other."
"§ 3116. Forfeitures and seizures"
"It shall be unlawful to have or possess any liquor or property
intended for use in violating the provisions of this part, or the
internal revenue laws, or regulations prescribed under such part or
laws, or which has been so used, and no property rights shall exist
in any such liquor or property. A search warrant may issue as
provided in title XI of the act of June 15, 1917, 40 Stat. 228, for
the seizure of such liquor or property. Nothing in this section
shall in any manner limit or affect any criminal or forfeiture
provision of the internal revenue laws, or of any other law. The
seizure and forfeiture of any liquor or property under the
provisions of this part, and the disposition of such liquor or
property subsequent to seizure and forfeiture, or the disposition
of the proceeds from the sale of such liquor or property, shall be
in accordance with existing laws or those hereafter in existence
relating to seizures, forfeitures, and disposition of property or
proceeds, for violation of the internal revenue laws."
[
Footnote 3]
E.g., Reynolds v. United States, 280 F. 1 (1922);
Adamson v. United States, 296 F. 110 (1924);
Staker v.
United States, 5 F.2d 312 (1925);
Patrilo v. United
States, 7 F.2d 804, 805 (1925).
Compare Page v. United
States, 278 F. 41 (1922).
[
Footnote 4]
E.g., Fair Labor Standards Act, 29 U.S.C. §§ 215, 216;
Internal Revenue Code (narcotics), 26 U.S.C. §§ 2553, 2554,
2557.
[
Footnote 5]
H.R.Rep. No. 6, 76th Cong., 1st Sess. 3; S.Rep. No. 20, 76th
Cong., 1st Sess. 3.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK, with whom MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, MR. JUSTICE
JACKSON, and MR. JUSTICE MINTON concur, dissenting.
Respondent was indicted for violating §§ 3116 and 3115 of the
Internal Revenue Code by having in his possession sugar, wooden
barrels, a metal cap, a heater box and mash pipe, all "intended for
use" in unlawfully evading liquor taxes. The District Court
dismissed the indictment for failure to charge a crime. I agree.
The indictment did clearly charge a violation of § 3116, which
makes it "unlawful" to hold property for such an intended use. But
§ 3116 does not make "unlawful" possession a crime; the only
sanction it contains is forfeiture. This
Page 347 U. S. 387
Court nevertheless holds that possession for such an "unlawful"
purpose is made a crime by § 3115(b). That section does not of
itself define a crime; it merely authorizes fine or imprisonment
for violations of other provisions of the Act which do not
themselves prescribe a "special penalty." Hence, the general
penalties of § 3115 cannot apply to violations of § 3116, because
this latter section prescribes its own "special penalty" -- seizure
and forfeiture of property. This forfeiture is plainly a penalty,
since there is no practical difference between taking a man's
property by forfeiture and taking his money by a fine. And where
Congress has specifically provided a property penalty, I cannot
agree to add a money penalty by dubious implication.
The accepted practice of construing criminal statutes narrowly
should be especially appropriate here, because of the unusual
nature of the "crime" involved. The Court's interpretation of §
3115 makes possession of innocent property, such as an automobile,
a crime if the possessor intends to use it illegally, even if he
has not done so. Guilt is made to depend wholly on what is within
the defendant's mind. Congress may well have been unwilling to
apply sanctions other than forfeiture to an unexpressed intention
to do something that has not even been attempted.