Salt Lake Tribune | 1918-03-10 | Page 2 | Heney Loses in Effort to Open Packers' Vault

I HENEY LOSES !1 i EFFOHT TO OPEN PffiOIILT United States Circuit Court of Appeals Quashe3 the j. tree Search Warrant to Per- nar t mitProLe of Letters. y rl N $ SPECIFIC PAPERS MUST BE SOUGHT cut art X I- W' W Attorneys rV!uch m"t Interested in Decision Be- nK cause of Pending Case Inn Wi" of Similar Nature. i'or; i - Hha f f'lirCAdO, March 9,-Tho United ,lUH Stales i:i ri-ni L court of appeals today "inalieil the search warrant isnue.1 by V Judge l.andis to permit exainiinition o "on t,,u 1,:'t(;r fi,cs 1" the offlro of floury tun Veeder, counsel for .Swift & Co., by the hni Kovcriiinont. The decision was ' with-am with-am "ut bar to further proceedings." ah! T,' """f-h warrant was sworn out onr by Francis J. Hcney, attorney for the wb federal trade commission, which is con-In con-In ducting a sweeping investigation of the packing industry. It was said that we the reversal was based on technical er-Hli er-Hli rorn in certain of the. Honey affida-of affida-of vits. '( The decision intimated that Mr. hi Honey was on a "fishing expedition" , wj in the Veeder vaults, whereas tho court I " found that under the constitution and ! the statute tho specific papers wanted 1 wi must be asked for and the petitioner I under oath must furnish concrete facts $a not "suspicious, beliefs or surmises" j m, ; which tend to establish tho necessary , ; legal conclusion in tho minds of the I issuing judge. The opinion reads: . ! In We thoroughly agree with tho ' a leornod district judge (kandis) 1 Hi that, the shield of the constitution i ol' dooR not protect property that has been used in the commission 'of j,: a felony and that such outlaw oj property is subject to seizure by (1 search warrant under this statute. Search Forbidden. But wo find that tho constitu- y tion and tho statute forbid a search warrant unless the issuing magistrate shall first draw tho nec-d nec-d essary legal conclusion from facts .c duly presented to him under- the oath of the accuser. (' And in tbo record now before j . us wo find no presentation of . facts. Needless to sav, the present judgment is not a bur to further proceedings. Unversed, with direction direc-tion to quash the search warrant. United States District Attorney Clyne declined to comment on the opinion. opin-ion. At Mr. Honey's hotel it was said that he left yesterday for Washington. Washing-ton. - i Tho federal lawyers are in much bet- ter position to name specifically docu-j docu-j ' ments wanted than if no search war-j war-j rant ever had been issued. The war-f war-f : rant was in full effect until an injunc-j injunc-j I tion and obtained by Mr. Veeder, and Mr. ITeney and Hugh Mclsnac,an ex-i ex-i aminer for the federal trade comniis-: comniis-: sion, spent several hours in the vaults whore the records are filed iu Mr. ' Veeder 's office. , Tho opinion of tho court of appeals I finds that the search warrant was is-, is-, sued on surmises and suspicions of Mr. Mclsaac. In further condemnation of . issuing a warrant on such grounds, the j opinion remarks "A brief statement of the applicable principles of law will suf- ' I floe, for they are so settled, so obvious ' j from a rending of the constitution and the statutory provisions iu question, so founded in the instinctive sense of nat-' nat-' viral justice, that no elaboration of the c I grounds therefor is needed. i Protect Property. j; ! "One's person and property must be r I entitled, in an orderly democracy, to e ! a protection against both mob hvsteria 1 I and the oppression of agents whom the t I people have chosen to represent them i in tho a'i tn i a !M ration of J.uvs, which a r- rr-ij ii i n'd h y tin; cons i tn; ion to op-'ra.t'' op-'ra.t'' upon fill persons alike. 'One'1-; li'Miie ami place of business iin; a ot fo ho in ';!'! ii fore! bly an it Kcari-!ic. by I he curious and the suspicions. suspi-cions. Not fuen by a disinterested officer offi-cer of the law, unless he is armed with a sea n-h vva n ;i n t. " The complaint on which .Turtle Land is issued the search wiirrant recited belief be-lief that in the Veeder vaults were letters, books, document and otheV items to the, number of 2000, used as a means by Swift & Co., conspiring with other big packers to hoard foodstuffs and to effect the market price of fish, poultry, cheese, meats, canned vegetables, vege-tables, canned fruit, canned fish, butter, but-ter, eggs and oleomargarine, as showing show-ing false entries to mislead government agents and showing collusion in bidding on government contracts. Government agents are working on tho filcs of other packers without restriction. re-striction. A deputy United States marshal mar-shal will remain in charge of tho Veeder Vee-der files until the mandate is filed in the United States district court. I. W. W. Interested. Otto Christiansen and George Van-derveer, Van-derveer, attorneys for the I. W. W. defendants, who have protested against tho seizure of I. V. W. records by government gov-ernment aents, were greatly interested i the quashing of the search warrant "In our case," explained Mr. Christiansen, Chris-tiansen, "we take the stand, as in the Veeder case, that the seizure was illegal. il-legal. We have a motion pending be-foro be-foro Judge Lnndis to Return the papers pa-pers and to quash the indictment, as the district attorney has testified that tho papers were used in obtaining the indictments. " Judge Landis was out of the city, but is expected to take up tho motion in the I. W. W. case early next week.