Opinion of the Court. Taylor in his Treatise on 2 Phillips's Ev. 3d ed. pp. 22-3. Evidence, after stating that a prisoner is not liable to be affected by the confessions of his accomplices, says: "So strictly has this rule been enforced, that where a person was indicted for receiving stolen goods, a confession by the principal that he was guilty of the theft, was held by all the judges to be no evidence of that fact as against the receiver (R. v. Turner); and the decision, it seems, would be the same, if both parties were indicted together, and the principal were to plead guilty. (Id.)" 1 Taylor's Ev. § 826, 6th ed. The principle to be deduced from these authorities is in harmony with the view that one accused of having received stolen goods with intent to convert them to his own use, knowing at the time that they were stolen, is not within the meaning of the Constitution confronted with the witnesses against him when the fact that the goods were stolen is established simply by the record of another criminal case with which the accused had no connection and in which he was not entitled to be represented by counsel. As heretofore stated the crime charged against Wallace, Baxter and King and the crime charged against Kirby were wholly distinct none the less so because in each case it was essential that the Government should prove that the property described was actually stolen. The record of the proof of a vital fact in one prosecution could not be taken as proof in the other of the existence of the same fact. The difficulty was not met when the trial court failed as required by the act of 1875 to instruct the jury that the record of the conviction of the principal felons was conclusive evidence of the fact that the property had been actually stolen, but merely said that such record made a prima facie case as to such fact. The fundamental error in the trial below was to admit in evidence the record of the conviction of the principal felons as competent proof for any purpose. That those persons had been convicted was a fact not necessary to be established in the case against the alleged receiver; for, under the statute, he could be prosecuted even if the principal felons had not been tried or indicted. As already stated, the effect of the charge was Opinion of the Court. to enable the Government to put the accused, although shielded by the presumption of innocence, upon the defensive as to a vital fact involved in the charge against him by simply producing the record of the conviction of other parties of a wholly different offence with which the accused had no connection. It is scarcely necessary to say that to the rule that an accused is entitled to be confronted with witnesses against him the admission of dying declarations is an exception which arises from the necessity of the case. This exception was well established before the adoption of the Constitution, and was not intended to be abrogated. The ground upon which such exception rests is that from the circumstances under which dying declarations are made they are equivalent to the evidence of a living witness upon oath" the condition of the party who made them being such that every motive to falsehood must be supposed to have been silenced, and the mind to be impelled by the most powerful considerations to tell the truth." Clyde Mattox v. United States, 146 U. S. 140, 151; Cooley's Const. Lim. 318; 1 Phillips on Ev. c. 7, § 6. For the reasons stated it must be held that so much of the above act of March 3, 1875, as declares that the judgment of conviction against the principal felons shall be evidence in the prosecution against the receiver that the property of the United States alleged to have been embezzled, stolen or purloined had been embezzled, stolen or purloined, is in violation of the clause of the Constitution of the United States declaring that in all criminal prosecutions the accused shall be confronted with the witnesses against him. Upon this ground the judgment must be reversed and a new trial had in accordance with law. But as the case must go back to the Circuit Court for another trial, it is proper to notice other questions presented by the assignments of error. The accused contends that the indictment is defective in that it does not allege ownership by the United States of the stolen articles of property at the time they were alleged to have been feloniously received by him. This contention is without merit. The indictment alleges that the articles. Opinion of the Court. described were the property of the United States when they were feloniously stolen on the 7th day of June, 1896, and that the defendant only two days thereafter, on the 9th day of June, 1896, "the postage stamps aforesaid so as aforesaid feloniously stolen, taken and carried away, feloniously did receive and have in his possession, with intent then and there to convert the same to his own use or gain, the said Joe Kirby then and there well knowing the said postage stamps to have been theretofore feloniously stolen, taken and carried away." The stamps alleged to have been feloniously received by the accused on the 9th day of June are thus alleged to have been the same that were stolen from the United States two days previously. The larceny did not change the ownership, and it must be taken that the United States had not regained possession of the stamps before they were received by Kirby, and that the indictment charges that they were out of the possession of the United States and stolen property when they came to the hands of the accused. Another contention by the accused is that the indictment was fatally defective in not stating from whom the defendant received the stamps. This contention is apparently supported by some adjudications, as in State v. Ives, 13 Iredell, 338. But upon a careful reading of the opinion in that case it will be found that the judgment rests upon the ground that the statute of North Carolina, taken from an old English statute, made the receiver of stolen goods strictly an accessory and contemplated the case of the goods being received from the person who stole them. As already stated the act of Congress upon which the present indictment rests makes the receiving of stolen property of the United States with the intent by the receiver to convert it to his own use or gain, he knowing it to have been stolen, a distinct, substantive felony, for which he can be tried either before or after the conviction of the principal felon, or whether the latter is tried or not. Under such a statute the person who stole the property might be pardoned, and yet the receiver could be indicted and convicted of the crime committed by him. Bishop in his New Criminal Procedure says that while some American cases have held it to be Opinion of the Court. necessary in an indictment against the receiver of stolen goods to state from whom he received the goods, "commonly, in England and in numbers of our States, the indictment does not aver from whom the stolen goods were received." Vol. 2, § 983. By an English statute, 7 & 8 Geo. IV, June 21, 1827, c. 29, § 54, it was enacted that "if any person shall receive any chattel, money, valuable security or other property whatsoever, the stealing or taking whereof shall amount to a felony, either at common law or by virtue of this act, such person knowing the same to have been feloniously stolen or taken, every such receiver shall be guilty of felony, and may be indicted and convicted either as an accessory after the fact, or for a substantive felony, and in the latter case, whether the principal felon shall or shall not have been previously convicted, or shall or shall not be amenable to justice," etc. Under that statute a receiver of stolen goods was indicted. It was objected that one of the counts did not state the name of the principal, or that he was unknown. Tindall, C. J., said: "It will do. The offence created by the act of Parliament is not the receiving stolen goods from any particular person, but receiving them knowing them to have been stolen. The question therefore will be, whether the goods are stolen, and whether the prisoner received them knowing them to have been stolen. Your objection is founded on the too particular form of the indictment. The statute makes the receiving of goods, knowing them to have been stolen, the offence." Rex v. Jervis, 6 C. & P. 156; 2 Russell on Crimes, 6th ed. 436. In State v. Hazard, 2 R. I. 474, an indictment charging the accused with fraudulently receiving stolen goods, knowing them to have been stolen, was held to be good, although it did not set forth the name of any person from whom the goods were received, nor that they were received from some person or persons unknown to the grand jurors. We therefore think that the objection that the indictment does not show from whom the accused received the stamps, nor state that the name of such person was unknown to the grand jurors, is not well taken. If the stamps were in fact stolen. from the United States, and if they were received by the Syllabus. accused, no matter from whom, with the intent to convert them to his own use or gain, and knowing that they had been stolen from the United States, he could be found guilty of the crime charged even if it were not shown by the evidence from whom he received the stamps. This rule cannot work injustice nor deprive the accused of any substantial right. If it appears at the trial to be essential in the preparation of his defence that he should know the name of the person from whom the Government expected to prove that he received the stolen property, it would be in the power of the court to require the prosecution to give a bill of particulars. Coffin v. United States, 156 U. S. 432, 452; Rosen v. United States, 161 U. S. 29, 35; Commonwealth v. Giles, 1 Gray, 466; Rosc. Crim. Ev. 6th ed. 178, 179, 420. The judgment is reversed, and the case is remanded with directions for a new trial and for further proceedings consistent with law. MR. JUSTICE BROWN and MR. JUSTICE MCKENNA dissented. MR. JUSTICE BREWER did not participate in the decision of this case. COSGROVE v. WINNEY. APPEAL FROM THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE UNITED STATES FOR THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF MICHIGAN. No. 172. Submitted January 19, 1899. Decided April 24, 1899. The appellant, a Canadian, was extradited from Canada under the extradition treaty between Great Britain and the United States, and, being brought before a police court of Detroit was charged with larceny, gave bail for his appearance at the trial, and returned to Canada. Returning from Canada to Detroit voluntarily before the time fixed for trial, he was arrested on a capias issued from the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Michigan before his extradition, charging him with an offence for which he was not extraditable, and was taken into custody by the marshal of that district. He applied to the District Court of the United States for a writ of habeas corpus which |