Williams v. United States

The questions here presented are (1) whether the indictment under which appellant v/.t; convicted and sentenced charges an offense against the United States and (2) whether the evidence supports the conviction.

First. The indictment charges that appellant, on or about December 10, 1943, within the District of Arizona and within and upon the Colorado River Indian Reservation, did “wilfully, unlawfully and feloniously ravish and carnally know Geraldine Rose Ameelycnah, she, the said Geraldine Rose Ameelycnah, being then and there a female person and an Indian under the age of eighteen years, and not being then and there the wife of [appellant].”

On the margin of the indictment this endorsement appears: “Violation: 18 U.S.C. 548 (Rape).” The endorsement indicates that the District Attorney who drew the indictment thought he was charging an offense under § 328 of the Criminal Code, 18 U.S.C.A. § 548 . This section applies only to offenses committed by Indians. The indictment does not charge that appellant is an Indian. 1 It therefore does not charge an offense under this section. However, as the Supreme Court has said:

The United States does not here contend that the indictment…

(dissenting).

The act proved here was the having of sexual intercourse with an Indian girl over the age of sixteen, with the girl’s consent. By § 279 of the Criminal Code, 18 U.S.C.A. § 458 , Congress has undertaken to define and punish the crime commonly termed “statutory rape,” that is, the act of having carnal knowledge of a female of tender years. It has fixed at sixteen years the age below which consent to the act may not lawfully be given.

The statute exhibits a congressional policy intended to obtain in all places over which the federal jurisdiction extends, regardless of what the local policy may be— whether less or more stringent. Thus if, as is the case in a number of states, the local statute has fixed.,the age of consent at a less mature age than sixteen, still, as the government admits, the federal statute governs in those localities within the state where the federal jurisdiction obtains. The converse, I think, is equally true. Accordingly, in my opinion, § 289 of the Criminal Code, 18 U.S.C.A. § 468 , is inapplicable. That statute was intended to apply only in the case of those offenses con- *963 corning which Congress has not itself deemed it politic to…