Pitta v. United States

HEALY, Circuit Judge.

Appellant was convicted of a violation of the Jones-Miller Act, § 2, 21 U.S.C.A. § 174. The indictment charged that he and one Bruno fraudulently and knowingly concealed and facilitated the concealment of a quantity of a morphine derivative, namely, one bindle containing a dram of heroin, which had been imported into the United States contrary to law, as the accused well knew.

The evidence for the government was that on a certain evening a federal narcotics agent entered the storeroom at the rear of a saloon and removed from between some beer cases a paper containing the…