Hugo Black

“ We need not determine whether Congress intended-by providing for the trial of crimes 'within the district * * * through which the transportation may have been conducted'-to confer jurisdiction in any District wherein a violation was not committed. The Government only insists that the indictments here disclose offenses committed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and urges that the provision for trial in any District through which illegal transportation is conducted is without meaning unless applicable to these prosecutions. ”

“ Here, the full lawful rate was paid for the transportation involved. The lawful transportation through the Eastern District of Pennsylvania was not infected by relation to any unlawful agreement, purpose or intent at the time it occurred. The record shows no offense that began in 1932 and continued until 1935. As was clearly set forth by the Circuit Court of Appeals in the Armour Packing Co. Case: [4] 'A continuing offense is a continuous, unlawful act or series of acts set on foot by a single impulse and operated by an unintermittent force, however long a time it may occupy. ”

“ The second ground of the motions to dismiss is that the government did not have a right of direct appeal to this Court granted by 18 U.S.C., Section 682, 18 U.S.C.A. § 682, which authorizes such an appeal where judgment sustaining a demurrer 'is based upon the invalidity, or construction of the statute upon which the indictment is founded.' The statute under which the indictments were returned provides expressly for the jurisdiction over offenses created by it, and the record clearly discloses that the rulings on demurrers involved a construction of the statute.↑ 49 U.S.C., Sec. ”