Crawford v. United States

On the 3d of April, 1905, in the supreme court of the District of Columbia, the defendant was indicted, together with George E. Lorenz and August W. Machen, for a conspiracy to defraud the United States, by means stated in the indictment, and in relation to a contract between the Postal Device & Lock Company, a corporation of the state of New Jersey, and the Postoffice Department of the United States, by which the company was to furnish certain satchels to the Department for the use of the letter carriers in the free-delivery system of the government.

The indictment was founded upon § 5440 of the Revised Statutes of the United States (U.S.C.omp. Stat. 1901, p. 3676), which reads as follows:

'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 of such parties do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, all the parties to such conspiracy shall be liable to a penalty of not more than ten thousand dollars, or to imprisonment for not more than two years, or to both fine and imprisonment, in the discretion of the court.'

Nearly two years before the finding of this indictment (viz., in July, 1903), the defendant had been indicted in the same court by two different indictments, relating to the same general subject-matter as the one found in April, 1905,-one indictment charging him with conspiring (together with Lorenz and Machen) against the United States, by agreeing to present false bills of account to the Postoffice Department, in relation to the contract mentioned, for supplying the Department with satchels for letter carriers, in alleged violation of § 5438 of the Revised Statutes (U.S.C.omp. Stat. 1901, p. 3674). The other indictment was against the defendant individually for presenting false claims to a clerk in the Postoffice Department under this same contract, and in violation of the same section of the Revised Statutes. Upon motion the three indictments were consolidated for the purpose of trial of the defendant and were tried together, a severance in the conspiracy indictments having been granted upon the defendant's motion for his separate trial. The two indictments found in 1903 have been so disposed of in the court below that no question arises in regard to either.

Upon the trial the defendant was convicted, as hereinafter more particularly stated, and he then appealed from the judgment entered upon the verdict of conviction to the court of appeals of the District, where it was affirmed by a divided court, Mr. Chief Justice Shepard dissenting. 30 D. C. App. 1.

Upon application of the defendant this court granted a writ of certiorari, and the case is now here by virtue of that writ.

Mr. A. S. Worthington for petitioner.

Mr. Justice Peckham, after making the foregoing statement, delivered the opinion of the court: