Opinion

O. C. Brown and Lewis Brown v. United States

  • 401 F.2d 769
Court
Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit
Filed
Nov 8, 1968
Status
Published
On the bench
Tuttle, Coleman, Morgan
Cited by
15 cases
Authority
More cited than 94.5%

The opinion

PER CURIAM:

On this appeal, the appellants seek to bring themselves within the rule of Marchetti v. United States, 390 U.S. 39 , 88 S.Ct. 697 , 19 L.Ed.2d 889 , and Grosso v. United States, 390 U.S. 62 , 88 S.Ct. 709 , 19 L.Ed.2d 906 , in which the Supreme Court held that the accused persons could not be convicted criminally for failure to comply with the statutory requirements requiring them to register and buy a stamp to permit them to engage in the wagering business. These appellants were convicted of having in their possession distilled spirits in containers which did not bear the proper Internal Revenue stamps.

Perhaps if this prosecution had occurred under an appropriate statute that existed during the short life of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, appellants could properly equate their situation to the appellants in Marchetti. As it is, however, we are informed by the government’s brief, and it is not disputed, (a matter of which we can take judicial notice) that possession of distilled spirits is legal to some extent in every one of the fifty states of the union. Therefore, we find ourselves in agreement with those district courts in addition to the trial court here, which have held that there is no danger of self incrimination resulting from the requirement of Sections 5205(a) (2) and 5604(a) (1) relating to the placing of stamps and taxing of distilled spirits.

We have also considered the supplementary brief filed

pro se

by the appellant O. C. Brown and find no merit in it.

The judgment was affirmed.

This is a copy of a public record, reproduced as it was published. It is not legal advice, and it may not be the version a court would rely on. Check the official source before you cite it.

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