Edgar Harold Teague v. United States

Edgar Harold Teague appeals from his conviction and sentence on a charge of stealing goods which had been placed on a wharf as part of a foreign shipment. Two questions are presented here. The first is whether the trial court committed reversible error in receiving in evidence a Japanese weighmaster’s certificate. The second is whether the court erred in denying Teague’s motion for judgment of acquittal.

Teague was convicted of stealing five coils of used copper wire. Early in 1957, Federated Metals Company of San Francisco sold 186 coils of used copper wire to a broker in New York. The broker in turn sold the wire to the Tatsuta Industrial Company in Japan. On March 6, 1957, Federated Metals sent the 186 coils by truck to pier 50 of the American President Lines in San Francisco. Each coil had attached to it a shipping tag showing the destination as Kobe, Japan.

Presumably the entire 186 coils were loaded aboard the SS. President Taylor on March 8, 1957. However, the coils were not counted individually during loading. That vessel sailed for Japan on the following day. On March 7, 1957, however, five coils resembling those shipped were found in Teague’s station wagon outside the…