Wong Bind Nung v. United States

This is an appeal from a judgment of the District Court in a judge tried case convicting appellant of knowingly and wilfully, to defraud the United States, smuggling and clandestinely introducing into the United States certain merchandise, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 545 .

Appellant, a seaman aboard an American vessel, transported merchandise from the Orient half of which he declared and removed from the ship when it docked at San Francisco. Appellant left the other half aboard ship and did not declare it. He had a fellow seaman ask a Customs agent if the undeclared merchandise could be landed. Upon receiving a negative answer, appellant’s seaman friend said appellant would take the goods to Manila. Earlier on the same day appellant had signed back on the ship as a crewmember. After this conversation Customs agents seized the merchandise aboard ship. It was this merchandise which appellant was convicted of smuggling into the United States. Appellant from the beginning has maintained that he intended to take the goods to Manila, if customs would not allow them to be landed here.

The indictment charges that:

The indictment is laid under the first paragraph of 18 .U.S.C. § 545,…