The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 250: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and District Courts of the United States, August-October, 1918. Page: 130
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250 FEDERAL REPORTER
tend that the father was liable. What remained, then, as a motive for the
father? The only motive to induce him to adopt the debt was the hope
that by so doing he would relieve his son from the inevitable consequences
of his crime. The question, therefore, my Lords, is whether a father, ap-
pealed to under such circumstances to take upon himself an amount of
civil liability, with the knowledge that, unless he does so, his son will be ex-
posed to a criminal prosecution, with the certainty of conviction, can be re-
garded as a free and voluntary agent. I have no hesitation in saying that no
man is safe, or ought to be safe, who takes a security for the debt of a
felon, from the father of the felon, under such circumstances. A contract to
give security for the debt of another, which is a contract without consid-
eration, is, above all things, a contract that should be based upon the free
and voluntary agency of the individual who enters into it. But it is clear
that the power of considering whether he ought to do it or not, whether it is
prudent to do it or not, is altogether taken away from a father who is
brought into the situation of either refusing, and leaving his son in that
perilous condition, or of taking on himself the amount of that civil obliga-
tion. I have, therefore, my Lords, in that view of the case, no difficulty in
saying that, as far as my opinion is concerned, the security given for the debt
of the son by the father under such circumstances was not the security of a
man who acted with that freedom and power of deliberation that must un-
doubtedly be considered as necessary to validate a transaction of such a de-
scription."
And on the second question:
"My Lords. there remains the other aspect of the case, which is this: Was
the transaction, regarded independently of pressure, an illegal one, as being
contrary to the settled rules and principles of law?"
And he proceeds, after stating the facts:
"Now, such being the nature of the transaction, my Lords, I apprehend the
law to be this, and unquestionably it is a law dictated by the soundest consid-
erations of policy and morality, that you shall not make a trade of a felony.
If you are aware that a crime has been committed, you shall not convert that
crime into a source of profit or benefit to yourself. But that is the position
In which these bankers stood. They knew well, for they had before them the
confessing criminal, that forgeries had been committed by the son, and they
converted that fact into a source of benefit to themselves by getting the
security of the father. Now, that is the principle of the law and the policy
of the law, and it is dictated by the highest considerations. If men were
permitted to trade upon the knowledge of a crime, and to convert their privi-
ty to that crime into an occasion of advantage, no doubt a great legal and
a great moral offense would be committed. And that is what, 1 apprehend, the
old rule of law intended to convey when it embodied the principle under words
which have now somewhat passed into desuetude, namely, 'misprision of
felony.' That was a case when a man, instead of performing his public duty,
and giving information to the public authorities of a crime that he was
aware of, concealed his knowledge, and rather converted it into a source of
emolument to himself. It is impossible, therefore, if you look at this matter
wholly independently of the question of pressure, and confine your attention
to the act of the bankers alone, not to come to the conclusion that a great
delictum was committed when the transaction is viewed simply with reference
to the course which they took.
"I asked, in the first place, were you not well aware that these bills were
forgeries? That is perfectly true. Did you not obtain an additional advan-
tage and benefit-in fact, the payment of your debt--by trading with these
bills? That is undoubtedly true. Were you not very well aware that, when
you so traded with these bills, you would either prevent the possibility of a
prosecution, or render the possibility of a prosecution so remote, that it could
hardly be expected to succeed? That was the inevitable consequence. But
if a man does an act which is attended necessarily with an inevitable conse-
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The Federal Reporter with Key-Number Annotations, Volume 250: Cases Argued and Determined in the Circuit Courts of Appeals and District Courts of the United States, August-October, 1918., legislative document, 1918; Saint Paul, Minnesota. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc38821/m1/145/: accessed March 28, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.