Pereira v. United States/Dissent Minton

by Sherman Minton

United States Supreme Court

347 U.S. 1

Pereira  v.  United States

 Argued: Oct. 20, 1953. --- Decided: Feb 1, 1954

Mr. Justice MINTON, with whom Mr. Justice BLACK and Mr. Justice DOUGLAS join, concurring in part and dissenting in part.

That a monumental fraud was perpetrated by the petitioners on Mrs. Joyce in the true fashion of a confidence game cannot be disputed. Such fraud could be punished by the States. For the United States to take cognizance of the offenses, the mails had to be used to carry out the fraud or the check fraudulently obtained must have been carried across state lines. That is what the Government charged. Count one charged that they caused a letter to be mailed from El Paso, Texas, to Los Angeles, California, on June 15, 1951. Count ten charged that on or about the same date they caused the check, in the amount of $35,286.78, to be transported in interstate commerce from El Paso to Los Angeles, knowing it was obtained by fraud. Count 11 charged a conspiracy to commit the substantive offenses.

I would affirm the convictions except as to Brading on the substantive counts. To convict on the substantive counts, the petitioners must have actually used the mails to transport the check from El Paso to Los Angeles. The use may be proved by direct or circumstantial evidence, but it must be proved. Brading must have used, or must have known or from the facts and circumstances be reasonably expected to have known, that Pereira actually would use the mails. United States v. Peoni, 2 Cir., 100 F.2d, 401, 402. To be guilty of the conspiracy, Brading had only to reasonably anticipate that Pereira might use the mails, and if he did subsequently use them, then Brading is bound.

The elements of the offense under the Mail Fraud statute are (1) a scheme to defraud which (2) reasonably contemplates the use of the mails, and (3) use of the mails in furtherance of the plan. The National Stolen Property Act is violated if (1) one transports securities or money of the value of $5,000 or more in interstate commerce and (2) does so knowing they have been taken by fraud.

Concededly, Brading did not participate directly in the use of the mails to transport the thirty-five thousand dollar check from El Paso to Los Angeles. He can be convicted, if at all, only as an aider and abettor. Nye & Nissen v. United States, 336 U.S. 613, 618, 69 S.Ct. 766, 769, 93 L.Ed. 919. There is no evidence to establish that he could reasonably have expected that the mails would be used in carrying out the scheme.

Three financial transactions are mentioned by the Court in its opinion. First, the $5,000 transaction. That all took place in Roswell, New Mexico, where Mrs. Joyce cashed a check on a Roswell bank and gave the proceeds to Pereira. No federal offense there. The Cadillac transaction was liquidated by a check received from Los Angeles by Mrs. Joyce and turned over to Pereira, who cashed it in Kansas City, Missouri. Brading was not shown to have known where this money came from, and, more important, it was not proved that that check was mailed, as was done in the case of the third check, for $35,286.78.

Mrs. Joyce arranged for this check, the only transaction upon which the convictions are based, by selling securities in Los Angeles. She received the check and turned it over to Pereira in Roswell, New Mexico, from whence he took it to El Paso, and there, on June 15, 1951, after securing Mrs. Joyce's endorsement, caused it to be sent through the mails for collection. The evidence does not show where Brading was at the time these events occurred. He next appeared at Mrs. Joyce's home in Roswell after the completion of the acts constituting the federal crimes, and on June 19, 1951, left with Pereira, ostensibly to see about some oil leases in Texas. The same day Pereira collected the money at the El Paso bank. There is no direct evidence that Brading actually knew or had reason to believe that a check would be received or that the check would be drawn on an out-of-town bank, necessitating its being placed in the mails for collection.

Lacking such proof, an important element of each crime charged, namely, that Brading had reason to foresee the use of the mails or interstate commerce, has not been established. It is true that the use of the mails need not have been originally intended as a part of the plan, but its use must have been a natural, reasonably foreseeable means of executing the plan. Brading might well have assumed that cash would be given to Pereira, or, if a check, one drawn on a local bank.

It may well be reasonable to infer that one receiving a check drawn on an out-of-town bank would know that it would be mailed in the process of collection, but to that inference must be added the inference that Brading had reason to know that a check would be received and also that the check would be on an out-of-town bank. This is piling inference upon inference, in the absence of direct proof. In short, this is simply guessing Brading into the federal penitentiary. It may be good guessing, but it is not proof.

Brading is clearly an aider and abettor of the scheme to defraud, which a State may punish, but is he an aider and abettor of the federal offenses of using the mails to defraud and causing the fraudulent check to be carried across state lines? I think not, unless we are willing to say that aiding and abetting the scheme to defraud is aiding and abetting any means used for the consummation of the fraud. Brading must aid and abet the federal crimes, not just the fraudulent scheme. There is not a scintilla of evidence that Brading aided and abetted anything more than the scheme to get the money from Mrs. Joyce.

In Bollenbach v. United States, 326 U.S. 607, 66 S.Ct. 402, 90 L.Ed. 350, the defendant was charged with transporting securities in interstate commerce knowing them to have been stolen, and with conspiracy to commit the offense. He was convicted of conspiracy. The court had instructed the jury that possession of the securities by the defendant in New York soon after their theft in Minnesota was sufficient to warrant the jury in finding that the defendant knew the securities had been stolen, and this would support the further 'presumption' that the defendant was the thief and transported the securities in interstate commerce. This Court set the conviction aside. The latter inference was said to be untenable.

In this case, I think it untenable to infer that Brading had reason to know that Pereira would get a foreign check that must be sent through the mails and in its handling must be carried across state lines, thereby making out the federal crimes. It is untenable because it is unreasonable to infer one or more facts from the inference of another fact. Looney v. Metropolitan R. Co., 200 U.S. 480, 488, 26 S.Ct. 303, 306, 50 L.Ed. 564; United States v. Ross, 92 U.S. 281, 23 L.Ed. 707.

Notes