BIDDLE v. LUVISCH , 266 U.S. 173 (1924)

[266 U.S. 173, 174]   Mr. Assistant Attorney General Donovan, for Biddle.

Mr. I. J. Ringolsky, of Kansas City, Mo., for Luvisch.

Mr. Justice McREYNOLDS delivered the opinion of the Court.

This certificate fails to meet often announced requirements and must be dismissed. It does not submit one [266 U.S. 173, 175]   or more definite questions of law arising upon the record, but in effect asks decision of the whole case. City of Waterville v. Van Slyke, 116 U.S. 699, 700 , 704 S., 6 S. Ct. 622; Jewell v. Knight, 123 U.S. 426, 433 , 8 S. Ct. 193; Cross v. Evans, 167 U.S. 60, 63 , 65 S., 17 S. Ct. 733; United States v. Union Pacific Ry., 168 U.S. 505, 512 , 513 S., 18 S. Ct. 167; Chicago, Burlington & Quincy R. v. Williams, 205 U.S. 444, 452 , 27 S. Ct. 559; Hallowell v. United States, 209 U.S. 101, 106 , 107 S., 28 S. Ct. 498.

The constantly increasing demands upon us make it highly important that only matters which are both substantial and in approved form should be presented.

Certificate dismissed.

Footnotes

[ Footnote 1 ] Appellee pleaded guilty in the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Michigan to an indictment in three counts charging him and certain others with making and having in possession a half-tone plate in similitude of plates used by the Dominion of Canada for printing excise stamps and of the sale of a number of prints of counterfeit stamps.

He was sentenced to the penitentiary at Leaven-worth, Kan., and while in prison applied to the United States District Court for the District of Kansas for release on habeas corpus, on the ground that the indictment charged no crime against the United States. The writ was awarded, and he was ordered discharged. The warden appealed to the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit which certified to the Supreme Court the following question:

'Do the counts of the indictment, or any of them, charge the commission of a criminal offense against the United States, as in violation of sections 147 and 161 of the Act of March 4, 1909 (35 Stat. 1088), known as the Penal Code of 1910?'