Felix Frankfurter

“ Inasmuch as the initiation of prosecution through grand juries forms a vital feature of the federal system of criminal justice, the law governing its procedures and the appropriate considerations for determining the legality of its actions are matters of first importance. Therefore, in deciding that the defendants were held to answer for an infamous crime on what was merely a scrap of paper and not 'the indictment of the Grand Jury' as required by the Fifth Amendment, the lower court went beyond that which relates to the special circumstances of a particular case. ”

“ For the legal limitations governing extension of the life of a grand jury do not lie in a recondite field of law in which a federal district judge may easily slip. Certainly every district judge in a great metropolitan center like Chicago knows that in a thorizing a grand jury to continue to sit 'for the purpose of finishing' their 'investigations', the 'investigations' must have been begun during the grand jury's original term and that new domains of inquiry may not thereafter be entered by the grand jury. ”

“ Such a view misconceives the duties and workings of a grand jury. It is invested with broad investigatorial powers into what may be found to be offenses against federal criminal law. Its work is not circumscribed by the technical requirements governing the ascertainment of guilt once it has made the charges that culminate its inquiries. A grand jury that begins the investigation of what may be found to be obstructions to justice or passport frauds or tax evasions opens up all the ramifications of the particular field of inquiry. ”

“ The worth of our jury system is constantly and properly extolled, but an argument such as that which we are rejecting tacitly assumes that juries are too stupid to see the drift of evidence. The jury in this case could not possibly have been misled into the notion that they must accept the calculations of the government expert any more than that they were bound by the calculations made by the defense's expert based on the defendants' assumptions of the case. ”

“ The nub of the matter is that they aided and abetted if they consciously were parties to the concealment of his interest in these gambling clubs of which they themselves pretended to be proprietors. Evidence of conduct, acts and admissions, amply warranted the trial court to send the substantive counts against the aiders and abettors to the jury.
A ruling on evidence, much pressed upon us, must finally be noticed. The court below held that the admission of the testimony of an expert witness regarding Johnson's income and expenditures during the disputed period invaded the jury's province. ”

“ Having been justified in finding that the individual defendants were screens behind which Johnson operated, the jury was also justified in finding that there were winnings from these houses on which Johnson attempted to evade income tax payments. Even such records as were kept in these houses were destroyed. But that these gambling transactions were on an enormous scale was overwhelmingly established. It is not to be expected that the actual financial transactions of such a vast illicit business would appear by direct proof. ”

“ Since the law permits a continuance of the grand jury 'to finish investigations' begun during its original terms, the most elementary requirement of attributing legality to judicial action should, unless violence is done to English speech, lead to a reading of the order of February 28 so as to restrict the grand jury to that which it legally could do instead of to an expansive reading making for illegality. ”

“ Section 332 of the Criminal Code, 18 U.S.C. § 550, 18 U.S.C.A. § 550, makes every person who 'directly commits any act constituting an offense defined in any law of the United States, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces, or procures its commission' a 'principal'. The vice of the lower court's ruling is its misconception of the nature of the offense defined by § 145 (b) with which Johnson is charged, as well as that of the relation of aiders and abettors, made principals by § 332 of the Criminal Code to such an offense. ”

“ Of course the government did not have to prove the exact amounts of unreported income by Johnson. To require more or more meticulous proof than this record discloses that there were unreported profits from an elaborately concealed illegal business, would be tantamount to holding that skilful concealment is an invincible barrier to proof. '* * * the probative sufficiency of the testimony has the support of the District Court (in which is included the verdict of the jury) and of the Circuit Court of Appeals. ”

“ Therefore, non-participation in merely one phase of Johnson's attempted evasion, namely, the filing of a false return on March 15th, is in itself irrelevant, and it is equally irrelevant that the aid which the co-defendants gave Johnson continued after March 15th as well as preceded it. The crime of each of the first four counts is the wilful attempt to evade the payment of what was due to the revenue. ”

“ Terms of court of the District Court for the Eastern Division of the Northern District of Illinois are, by statute, fixed for the first Monday in February, March, April, May, June, July, September, October, and November, and on the third Monday in December. ”