(270 U. S. 36) duce them to return a false and erroneous STATE OF MARYLAND v. SOPER, District verdict, and thus to obstruct justice in viola Judge, et al. (Argued on Return to Rules Dec. 7, 1925. Decided Feb. 1, 1926.) No. 24, Original. tion of a criminal statute of Maryland. This testimony was given the day after Wenger's death while the defendants were under arrest on the charge of murder, and the indictment in this case was returned at the same time as the indictment for murder. *40 *The amended petition of defendants for Removal of causes 22-Federal prohibition officers and aide, indicted for obstructing justice by false testimony before coroner, held not entitled to transfer of prosecution to fed-removal avers that "on the afternoon of No eral court. Federal prohibition enforcement officers and their chauffeur, voluntarily testifying before coroner concerning death of one whom they found mortally wounded near place of illicit liquor manufacture, held to have acted as individuals, and, when indicted for obstructing justice by false testimony, not entitled to have the prosecution transferred to federal court, under Judicial Code, § 33 (Comp. St. § 1015). vember 20th your petitioners were called before the coroner's inquest heretofore described in the indictment, and freely and without reservation, in accordance with their duty as investigating and reporting officers of the federal government and acting under the direction of the Maryland federal prohibition director, related the facts before mentioned; and thereupon they were again placed in the Harford county jail and held for the action of the Harford county grand Original petition by the State of Maryland jury." The amended petition concludes with for writ of mandamus to compel Morris A. the statement that "the said indictment is Soper, Judge of the District Court of the now pending in the circuit court for Harford United States for the District of Maryland, county, and is a criminal prosecution on acand the District Court of the United States count of acts alleged to have been done by for the District of Maryland, to remand to your petitioners at a time when they were the state circuit court an indictment of fed- engaged in the performance of their duties eral prohibition officers and aide for obstruct-as federal prohibition officers and chauffeur ing justice by false testimony. Mandamus for federal prohibition officers, as set forth made absolute. Messrs. Herbert Levy and Thomas H. Robinson, both of Baltimore, Md., for the State of Maryland. *37 in the aforegoing paragraphs." The record in this case is in all respects like that in the case just decided, except that the prosecution is for obstruction of justice. The orders of the federal District Court, the *Mr. Assistant Attorney General Donovan, other proceedings, the stipulation as to evifor respondents. *39 dence, the petition for mandamus, and the return of Judge Soper to the rule issued on *Mr. Chief Justice TAFT delivered the the petition of the state for mandamus are all similar. opinion of the Court. Counsel for the state of Maryland argue This is a petition for mandamus by the state of Maryland to require the District that the accused officers were in no sense actCourt of the United States for that state to ing in their official capacity when engaged in remand to the state circuit court for Harford the alleged conspiracy to deceive the coroner; county an indictment by the grand jury of that their duty had been discharged when that county for obstructing justice of the state they destroyed the still; that their subseby false testimony. The indictment had been quent reports of what had happened to their removed from the circuit court to the federal federal superiors are not the subject of this court in asserted compliance with section 33 prosecution; that the indictments for conof the Judicial Code (Comp. St. § 1015). The spiracy and perjury were based, not on acts amended petition of removal, upon the suf- which the defendants had done in pursuance ficiency of which the application of section of federal law and in discharge of their duty to the federal government, but on testimony 33 turns, discloses the same state of facts as that shown in the mandamus case between given by them under their obligations to *the the same parties just decided. The indict-state as individuals and for which they were ment charges that the same defendants as were there charged with murder conspired in a hearing before a justice of the peace of Harford county, acting as the coroner with a jury and engaged in the official duty of inquiring into the manner of the death of Lawrence Wenger on November 20, 1924, to deceive the coroner and jury by withholding the facts concerning Wenger's death, and falsely asserting ignorance thereof, in order to in *41 detained in jail. To this it is answered, on behalf of the United States, as follows: "But how did the officers come to be in jail? If they had not been engaged in the performance of their duties as federal officers, they Wenger's body, they had just come from perwould never have been there. When they found forming their duty, and were on their way back to report officially to their superior. At that time they were still acting in their official ca For other cases see same topic and KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes (46 S.Ct.) pacity. United States v. Gleason, 1 Woolw. | properly include those for acts committed by 128, Fed. Cas. No. 15216. In immediately seek- a federal officer in defense of his life, threating for a physician, and in reporting Wenger's ened while enforcing or attempting to enforce death at once to the state's attorney, they were the law. Such acts of defense are really doing the only reasonable act which could be expected of them, both as public officers and as part of the exercise of his official authority. private citizens. But, as their petition alleges, They are necessary to make the enforcement the state's attorney, on being informed by them effective. that your petitioners * were prohibition officers, ordered them to be at once placed under arrest. * "If they had not discovered Wenger and reported his murder, there would have been no need for them to testify before the coroner's jury, and there would have been no occasion for any charge of conspiracy. The two charges, it is submitted, are so closely interrelated that they can not properly be separated. The charge of murder gave rise to the charge of conspiracy. If the former charge is removable to the federal court, it is submitted that the latter should be removable also. "Considerable danger would be involved in a contrary holding. If charges of murder alleged to have been committed by federal officers are removable, and charges of conspiracy and similar offenses are not removable, an obvious expedient would suggest itself. In localities where the administration of particular federal laws is unpopular, federal officers need no longer be dragged before hostile state tribunals on charges such as murder, on which they may successfully claim removal and plead self-defense. *The charge can readily be altered to 'conspiracy,' or to some other crime, which the accused officers deny having committed at all, but on which it will be clear that removal cannot be obtained. 42 The actual charge will serve merely as a cloak to obtain the desired end, namely, incarceration of an unpopular officer. In this way the functions of the federal government may be harassed or impeded, and its officers withdrawn from their duty, as effectively as by prosecutions for homicide actually committed in self-defense. This method may easily become as effective as out-and-out nullification of federal laws." We may concede that the reports of the officers to their federal superiors were within their official duty, but it does not follow that whatever happened between the events at the place of the still and the return to Baltimore to make report was within the protection of their official immunity. It depends upon the nature of that which they did in the interval. The right of the state to inquire into suspected crime in its territory justifies the use of investigation by its officers and the questioning of suspected persons under oath. The response of the federal officer under sus picion to such questioning is not an act of his under federal authority. Of course one can state a case in which acts not expressly authorized by the federal statutes are such an inevitable outgrowth of the officer's discharge of his federal duty and so closely interrelated with it as necessarily to be within the protection of section 33. ⚫43 *This is as far as the case of United States v. Gleason, supra, 25 Fed. Cas. 1335, No. 15,216, cited by government counsel, would by analogy carry us. That was a charge to the jury by Mr. Justice Miller in the trial of a federal criminal indictment under a statute punishing the obstruction of a federal officer in arresting an army deserter which caused the death of the officer. The justice said to the jury that, if the officer having been obstructed was retreating with a view of making other arrangements to perform his duty of arresting, he was still employed in arresting deserters. It was not necessary, to render his killing an offense against the United States, that he should be engaged in the immediate duty of arrest. "The purpose of the law is to protect the life of the person so employed, and this protection continues so long as he is engaged in a service necessary and proper to that employment." But the indictment which is here removed is for acts not thus closely connected with, and included in, the attempted enforcement of the federal law. The defendants when called upon to testify before the coroner were not obliged by federal law to do so. Indeed, even under state law they might have stood mute, because the proceeding was one in which they were accused of crime. They themselves show that they voluntarily made the statements upon which these indictments were founded. While of course it was natural that, if not guilty, they should have responded fully and freely to all questions as to their knowledge of the transaction with a view of showing their innocence, nevertheless their evidence was not in performance of their duty as officers of the United States. In answer to the suggestion that our construction of section 33 and our failure to sustain the right of removal in the case before us will permit evilly minded persons to evade the useful operation of section 33, we can only say that if prosecutions of this kind 44 come to be used to obstruct *seriously the enforcement of federal laws, it will be for Congress in its discretion to amend section 33, so that the words "on account of" shall be enlarged to mean that any prosecution of a federal officer for any state offense which can be shown by evidence to have had its motive in a wish to hinder him in the enforcement of federal law, may be removed for trial to Thus removals of prosecution on account the proper federal court. We are not now of acts done in enforcement of the revenue considering or intimating whether such an or prohibition laws or under color of them enlargement would be valid; but what we 46 S.CT.-13 wish to be understood as deciding is that | Franklin Ely for perjury, in the inquiry made (270 U. S. 44) (270 U. S. 59) MILLERS' INDEMNITY UNDERWRITERS v. BRAUD et al. STATE OF MARYLAND v. SOPER, District (Argued Jan. 13, 1926. Decided Feb. 1, 1926.) Judge, et al. (Argued on Return to Rules. Dec. 7, 1925. Decided Feb. 1, 1926.) No. 25, Original. under statutes. No. 124. Admiralty 20-Texas Workmen's Compen- Texas Workmen's Compensation Law (Ver Removal of causes 22-Federal prohibition Federal prohibition officer, testifying before coroner concerning death of one whom he, with others, had found mortally wounded near place of illicit liquor manufacture, held to have acted as an individual, and, when indicted for perjury, not entitled to have the prosecution transferred under Judicial Code, § 33 (Comp. St. § 1015), to federal court. Original petition by the State of Maryland for writ of mandamus to compel Morris A. Soper, Judge of the District Court of the United States for the District of Maryland, and the District Court of the United States for the District of Maryland, to remand to the state court an indictment of a federal prohibition officer for perjury. Mandamus made absolute. Messrs. Herbert Levy and Thomas H. Robinson, both of Baltimore, Md., for the State of Maryland. Mr. Assistant Attorney General Donovan, for respondents. *45 *Mr. Chief Justice TAFT delivered the opinion of the Court. This case is quite like that in No. 24, original, 270 U. S. 36, 46 S. Ct. 192, 70 L. Ed. 459, just decided. It differs in that here the indictment which was removed from the circuit court for Harford county, Maryland, to the District Court of the United States for Maryland, was an indictment against E. *62 The court below affirmed a judgment of the For other cases see same topic and KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes *63 (46 S.Ct.) count of the death of her brother, O. O. Bou- by state statutes. And we held that under dreaux. April 17, 1920, while employed as a the circumstances discloseddiver by the National Shipbuilding Company, "regulation of the rights, obligations and conhe submerged himself from a floating barge sequent liabilities of the parties, as between anchored *in the navigable Sabine river 35 theinselves, by a local rule would not necessarily work material prejudice to any characfeet from the bank, for the purpose of saw-teristic feature of the general maritime law, ing off the timbers of an abandoned set of or interfere with the proper harmony or uniways, once used for launching ships, which formity of that law in its international or inhad become an obstruction to navigation. terstate relations." While thus submerged, the air supply failed, and he died of suffocation. Stressing the point that the parties were clearly and consciously within the terms of the statute and did not in fact suppose they were contracting with reference to the general system of maritime law, we alluded to the circumstance, not otherwise of special imPar.portance, that each of them had contributed to the industrial accident fund. The employing company carried a policy of insurance with plaintiff in error conditioned to pay the compensation prescribed by the statute and accordingly was "regarded as a subscriber" to the Texas Employers' Insurance Association therein provided for. 1, § 3 of the statutes declares: "The employés of a subscriber shall have no right of action against their employer for damages for personal injuries, and the representatives and beneficiaries of deceased employés shall have no right of action against such subscribing employer for damages for injuries resulting in death, but such employés and their representatives and beneficiaries shall look for compensation solely to the association, as the same is hereinafter provided for. It also prescribes a schedule of weekly payments for injured employés or their beneficiaries, and provides for a board to pass up on claims and an ultimate right to proceed in court. Subscribers' employés do not contribute to the necessary costs of such protection. They are presumed to accept the plan and to waive all right to recover damages for injuries at common law or under any statute unless they give definite written notice to the contrary. No such notice was given by the deceased. Plaintiff in error insists that the claim arose out of a maritime tort, that the rights and obligations of the parties were fixed by the maritime law, and that the state had no power to change these by statute or otherwise. This subject was much considered in Grant Smith-Porter Co. v. Rohde, 257 U. S. 469, 477, 42 S. Ct. 157, 66 L. Ed. 321, 25 A. L. R. 1008, here on certificate, which arose out of in 64 juries suffered by a carpenter *while at work upon an uncompleted vessel lying in navigable waters within the state of Oregon. The words of the local statute applied to the employment and prescribed an exclusive remedy. We said the cause was controlled by the principle that, as to certain local matters regulation of which would work no material prejudice to the general maritime law, the rules of the latter may be modified or supplemented And answering the certified questions we affirmed that: "The general admiralty jurisdiction extends to a proceeding to recover damages resulting from a tort committed on a vessel in process of construction when lying on navigable waters. within a state." Also that: "In the circumstances stated the exclusive features of the Oregon Workmen's Compensation Act [Or. L. § 6605 et seq.] would apply and abrogate the right to recover damages in an admiralty court which otherwise would exist." In the cause now under consideration the record discloses facts sufficient to show a maritime tort to which the general admiralty jurisdiction would extend save for the provisions of the state Compensation Act; but the matter is of mere local concern and its regulation by the state will work no materi*65 al prejudice to any characteristic *feature of the general maritime law. The act prescribes the only remedy; its exclusive features abrogate the right to resort to the admiralty court which otherwise would exist. We had occasion to consider matters which were not of mere local concern because of their special relation to commerce and navigation, and held them beyond the regulatory power of the state, in Great Lakes Dredge & Dock Co. v. Kierejewski, 261 U. S. 479, 43 S. Ct. 418, 67 L. Ed. 756, Washington v. Dawson & Co., 264 U. S. 219, 44 S. Ct. 302, 68 L. Ed. 646, Gonsalves v. Morse Dry Dock Co., 266 U. S. 171, 45 S. Ct. 39, 69 L. Ed. 228, and Robins Dry Dock Co. v. Dahl, 266 U. S. 449, 457, 45 S. Ct. 157, 69 L. Ed. 372. The conclusion reached by the court below is correct and its judgment must be Affirmed. (270 U. S. 45) trary exercise of power, but only a decision COLE et al. v. NORBORNE LAND DRAIN-upon disputable questions of benefit with reAGE DIST. OF CARROLL COUN TY, MO., et al. gard to land all of which was Missouri bottom land, similar in condition in everything (Argued Jan. 20, 1926. Decided Feb. 1, 1926.) but degree. It upheld the inclusion of the No. 152. 1. Drains 15-State has power to add benefited land to lawfully constituted drainage district against will of owner. State has power to add benefited land to a lawfully constituted drainage district against the will of the owner. 2. Constitutional law 233-Drains —~2(1) -Statute relating to inclusion of benefited lands in established district held not unconstitutional, as unlawfully discriminative. Drainage Law Mo. 1913, § 40, providing for the inclusion of benefited lands in a previously established drainage district on petition of supervisors of district, is not unlawfully discriminatory, contrary to Const. U. S. Amend. 14, merely because matter of such addition to district is not determined on petition of owners of majority of acreage as in case of original organization. of the Court. plaintiffs' land. In view of the constitutional question raised the plaintiffs appealed directly to this Court. *47 [1] Under the laws of the State a drainage district was incorporated which originally contained, it is said, 14,400 acres. In a later year, upon petition of the supervisors of the district, the boundaries were enlarged in due statutory form so as to take in nearly 24,000 acres more of adjoining land, including that now concerned. It is not disputed that the original district was lawful in all respects. In general there can be no doubt that a State has power to add more land that shares the benefit of a scheme, to the lawfully constituted district that has to pay for it, and to do so against the will of the owner. Houck v. Little River Drainage District, 239 U. S. 254, 262, 36 S. Ct. 58, 60 L. Ed. 266; Squaw Creek Drainage District v. Turney, 235 Mo. 80, 138 S. W. 12; Mudd v. St. Francis Drainage District, 117 Ark. 30, 173 S. w. 825; Faithorn v. Thompson, 242 Ill. 508, 90 N. E. 303. [2] But it is objected that as in this case the original district was formed on the petition of the "owners of a majority of the acreage" in contiguous lands, and as, under the statute, the concurrence of the owners of a majority of the acreage was necessary, there is an unconstitutional discrimination in not leaving it to a similar majority to determine whether the new land shall come in. It seems strange if the power of the Legislature to add to a lawfully existing district depends on how that district was formed many years before. But it is enough to repeat the answer of the appellees. The original incorporators take the risk of a plan and agree to pay for it while as yet they do not know exactly what the plan will be or what the benefits. If after the plan is made and started it becomes obvious that other contiguous land will be benefited, it is just that such land should help to pay the bills. But only an Eighteenth Century faith in human nature could expect that the owners would vote to come in and pay their shares when they would get the same benefit if they stayed out. The discrimination is justified by the change in position at the later time. 48 This is a bill to restrain the collection of a tax and entry upon the plaintiffs' lands in pursuance of a plan of drainage established in the mode provided by the laws of Missouri. The grounds on which relief is sought are that section 40 of the Drainage Laws of [3] *As to the supposed sinister purpose of 1913 (Laws 1913, p. 254), under which the those who brought the plaintiffs in, no eviplaintiffs' lands were brought into the drain-dence was given to prove it. That the plainage district, is contrary to the Fourteenth tiffs' land would be benefited has been found Amendment, and that the inclusion of their lands was an arbitrary exercise of power for the purpose of making the plaintiffs pay for benefits that they did not share. The District Court found that there was no arbi by the Circuit Court of Carroll County, Missouri, which made the order, and by the District Court below. We see no reason in the evidence for not accepting their findings. There is another objection to inquiring fur For other cases see same topic and KEY-NUMBER in all Key-Numbered Digests and Indexes |