Lucille Aldine Dege and Ernest Dege v. United States of America, Lucille Dege v. United States

This is another case involving the ■smuggling of psitticine birds from Mexico to the United States.

Appellants, husband and wife, were jointly indicted on August 21, 1958, in the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, Southern Division (No. 27809), charged with conspiracy to so smuggle between October 1957 and March 1958 (an alleged violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 371 and 545). The district court dismissed the indictment as to both defendants on the ground that husband and wife were legally incapable of so conspiring under § 371. The Supreme Court reversed ( 364 U.S. 51 , 80 S.Ct. 1589 , 4 L.Ed.2d 1563 ). The defendant Lucille Dege was reindicted in February 1961, charged with the last overt act named in the previous conspiracy count, i. e., receiving, concealing and facilitating the concealment of 389 psittacine birds on March 7, 1958, knowing them to have been illegally imported (an alleged violation of 18 U.S.C. § 545 ). The new action was consolidated with No. 27809, and both actions tried before one jury, which convicted both defendants; Lucille Dege on two counts and Ernest Dege on one.

We note that neither after the government’s case was completed…