In Error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Oregon.

In February, 1905, John II. Mitchell, (hen a United States Senator from the state of Oregon, was indicted by the grand jury for the district of Oregon for a violation of section 1782 of the Revised Statutes of the United States for agreeing to receive and receiving from one Frederick A. Kribs compensation for services rendered in appearing before the Commissioner of the General Band Oilice for the purpose of pursuading the Commissioner to make special, expedite, and approve certain fraudulent applications and claims for (facts of public lands in the state of Oregon, in which the said Kribs was interested. The indictment contains seven counts, each alleging in substance that Mitchell, while a Senator of the United States, had accepted and received from Kribs various amounts set forth in the separate counts in payment for services rendered in appearing before the Commissioner of the General Land Oilice with relation to the applications, proceedings, claims, matters, and things in which the United States was directly interested. On this indictment Senator Mitchell was tried before a jury in the Circuit Court for the district of Oregon and found guilty. On the verdict as rendered by the jury the court, on July 25, 1905. entered a judgment that the defendant pay a fine of $1,000. and that he be imprisoned for a term of six months. Thereupon Senator Mitchell gave a supersedeas bond, and on July 29. 1905, sued out a writ of error from the Supreme Court of the United States. While the writ of error was pending in the Supreme Court, Senator Mitchell died. This fact being suggested to the court by counsel, the writ of error was dismissed by the court, and a mandate issued to the Circuit Court “that such proceedings be had in said cause as according to right and .justice, and the laws of the United States, ought to be had, the said writ of error notwithstanding.” This mandate was filed in ihe Circuit Court on August 15, 19tHi, but no proceedings were had tliereon until July 11, 1907, when David M. Dunne, the defendant in error, and Hie duly appointed and qualified administrator of the estate of John H. Mitchell, filed a motion, supported by his affidavit, praying for an order declaring the entire proceedings in the cause abated by reason of the death of .the defendant. and for the cancellation of the fine Imposed upon the defendant, together with the entry thereof in the judgment docket, and declaring the same to be no longer of any validity. The motion was granted, and a judgment entered accordingly. To this judgment the United States prosecutes the present writ of error.