Howard Wallace Barbee and Bobby Joe Manziel v. United States

GOLDBERG, Circuit Judge.

In 1963 Howard Wallace Barbee and Bobby Joe Manziel, then gullible and motivated by avarice, lost ten thousand dollars in a confidence racket. The memory of that hoax lingered with them, and two years later, still motivated by avarice, they sought to recoup their losses by instigating the same racket for their benefit. The only difference was that their intended victim notified the police, and Barbee and Manziel were arrested. They were convicted in a federal district court for illegal possession of altered currency in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 472, which currency had…