Biddle v. United States

DE HAVEN, District Judge.

This' is an appeal by the defendant from a judgment of the United States Court for China, by which he was convicted of the crime of obtaining money under false pretenses, and sentenced to imprisonment for the term of one year in the jail at Shanghai.

It is claimed by the appellant: First, that the court below was without jurisdiction to try him for such alleged crime, because the act of obtaining money or goods by false pretenses was not an offense at common law, and is not made a crime by the laws of the United States; and, second, that the evidence was not sufficient…