372
The Green Bag
Congress establishes a forest reserve
criminate
for what it decides to be national and public purposes. In the same way and in the exercise of the same trust it may disestablish a reserve, and devote the property to some other national and pub
rendered the constitutional provision inapplicable, by destroying the in criminating effect of the evidence given,
lic purpose.
These are rights incident
to proprietorship, to say nothing of the power of the United States as a sovereign over the property belonging to it.
Even
a private owner would be entitled to
them;
the
immunity Act
and by providing absolute immunity from prosecution for any crime already
committed concerning the matters. trans actions and things testified about; the immunity furnished related to present and not future crimes; that immunity purged the evidence given of all unlaw ful characteristics, and assured the
protection against wilful trespasses, and statutes providing that damage done by animals cannot be recovered, unless
defendants that up to the time they
the land had been inclosed with a fence
wrongful thing; the immunity Act did
of the size and material required, do not give permission to the owner of cattle to use his neighbor's land as a
transactions,
pasture. They are intended to condone trespasses by straying cattle; they have
no application to cases where they are
testified they had done no wicked or not, and could not alter or destroy the
matters
and things eon
ceming which the information was furnished. They must exist still as facts, harmless and pure, to be sure, but still tangible facts; and those facts,
driven upon unfenced land in order that
proper foundation having been laid,
they may feed there. Lazarus v. Phelps, 152 U. S. 81, 38 L. ed. 363, 14 Sup. Ct.
and when legally competent and rele vant, may be shown at any time, in any action, civil or criminal.
Rep. 477; Monroe v. Cannon, 24 Mont.
324, 81 Am. St. Rep. 439, 61 Pac. 863; St. Louis Cattle Co. v. Vaught, 1 Tex. Civ. App. 388, 20 S. W. 855; Union P. R. Co. v. Rollins, 5 Kan. 176." See Administrative Powers.
Immunity.
Granted by Constitution
only with Regard to Incriminating Em'dence——~Federal Immunity Act Con slrued -— Sherman Anti-Trust Law.
U. S. Judge Carpenter of the United States District Court, in ruling upon a motion to quash the indictments under the Sherman Act in the "beef trust” cases,
U. S. v. Swift et al., at Chicago, March 22, rendered an extended opinion con
sidering constitutional questions.
He
said in part: —
"The Constitution guaranteed to the defendants the right of silence only with respect to evidence which might in
“If I am right in my conclusion as to the effect of the Fifth Amendment and the Immunity Statutes, upon the
evidence given by the defendants to the Commissioner of Corporations in 1904, then the only question remaining is whether the court ought to quash an
indictment because incompetent evi dence was presented to the grand jury." The Court answered this last question in the negative. The Court thus reached the result that the "immunity bath" granted the
defendants by Judge Humphrey's de cision in 1906 would not bar the prose cution begun six months previously. The defendants filed demurrers which
were overruled by Judge Carpenter May 12. In his ruling Judge Carpenter upheld the constitutionality of the Sherman Act, and held that it defined with sufficient accuracy the criminal
