to the vital elements of the people's case, whether a crime has been committed at all, might be entirely different. and leaves it uncertain A similar result might attend a defense of justifiable homicide, and so the question of the burden of proof and the scope and effect of a reasonable doubt, became in the case at bar of very great importance. * * * The learned trial judge began his charge with the definitions of the statute, and very fairly and correctly explained its classification of the different forms of homicide. Having done so he approached the rules which should govern the jury in deciding between them, and in so doing used expressions to which exceptions were taken. He said: "Now it is for you to say to which one of these classes of crime this evidence points. Here has been a homicide. Here has been a human life taken. It becomes a serious question as to whether or not a man shall execute the law or execute vengeance upon his fellow. If he does he must do it at the peril of either being punished for it or being able to excuse himself when called upon to answer to the wrong within one of the excuses that is fixed and given in the law. If he is not he must be found guilty of one or the other of the crimes which are imputed to him by reason of the homicide." A jury could hardly fail to understand from this language that a homicide, the fact of a human life taken, involved a legal implication of murder which must compel a verdict of guilty unless the prisoner is able to excuse himself within the statutory definitions. * * * It is evident that the prisoner's counsel so understood the charge. and, after excepting to it, made a series of requests with a view of more clearly ascertaining the meaning of the charge, or procuring a modification of its terms. He asked the court to charge "that no state of proof ever changes the burden of proof; the burden remains throughout the trial upon the people;" to which the learned judge replied: "I decline to charge it in those words. I qualify it by saying that if the people establish the homicide by the use of a deadly weapon, committed by the defendant. intentionally and with deliberation, that then any excuse for the commission of that crime or the commission of that act must come from the defendant." The understanding of the jury of the position of the court was quite likely to be that the burden did not always rest on the prosecution; but when a prima facie case of murder had been made the burden shifted to the defendant, who sought to excuse or justify. * * * Now, construing together what the court said, and what it refused to say, I think it is obvious that the jury were likely to act under the impression that a homicide proved implied crime on the part of the slayer; that a conviction must follow unless the prisoner justified. or excused the act; that the burden of that defense was upon him; and that to secure acquittal he must be able to show a legal justification or excuse, and the jury must reach that conclusion if it would acquit. THROCKM.Ev. (2D ED.)-4 Taking the charge together, and construing it as a whole, I am unable to resist the conviction that in the minds of the jury it shifted the burden of proving his defense upon the prisoner, and deprived him as to that defense of the benefit of a reasonable doubt. While there is no legal implication of the crime of murder from the bare fact of a homicide, the jury may infer it as a fact, and may do so even though no motive is assigned for the act, and the case is bare of circumstances of explanation. People v. Conroy, 97 N. Y. 77. But the inference is one of fact which the jury must draw if such seems to them to be their duty, and not one of law which the court may impose upon their deliberation, and then upon that assumption shift the burden upon the prisoner and require him to prove that no crime. has in fact been committed. We think, therefore, that the order of the general term, reversing the judgment of conviction, was right, and should be affirmed. ̈Äll concur, except RUGER, C. J., not voting. COLORADO COAL & IRON CO. et al. v. UNITED STATES. (Supreme Court of the United States, 1887, 123 U. S. 307, 8 Sup. Ct. 131, 31 L. Ed. 182.) Appeal from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Colorado. MATTHEWS, J. This is a bill in equity filed in the name of the United States by the Attorney General on January 22, 1880, the object and prayer of which are to declare void and cancel 61 patents for as many distinct pieces of land, situated at different places in Las Animas county, in the state of Colorado, amounting in the aggregate to 9,565.95 acres. To the original bill the Southern Colorado Coal & Town Company, a corporation organized under the laws of Colorado, was the sole defendant. The patents in question were issued at different times between October, 1873, and October, 1874, upon pre-emption claims, under the act of 1841. In each case there appeared to be filed all the necessary and proper affidavits, duly verified before the register or receiver of the land office at Pueblo, showing that the pre-emptors had entered and settled in person upon the land on a day named, and had made improvements thereon, the nature of which were set out in detail, and that the lands in question were nonmineral lands, and subject to pre-emption under the acts of congress relating thereto. Between May, 1873, and December, 1875, warranty deeds in the names of the pre-emptors and 4 For a discussion of principles, see McKelvey on Evidence (3d Ed.) § 35. A portion of the opinion is omitted. THROCKM.Ev. (2D ED.) patentees were made, acknowledged, and recorded, apparently conveying the premises to William S. Jackson, as trustee, who represented a number of individuals who had deposited money in his hands to be used in the purchase of lands in Colorado. On June 1, 1876, by deed duly acknowledged and recorded, but without covenant of warranty, Jackson conveyed and released all these lands to the defendant, the Southern Colorado Coal & Town Company. On January 20, 1880, that corporation was consolidated with other corporations under the name of the "Colorado Coal & Iron Company," to which, upon that date, the lands in question were conveyed. Under date of February 1, 1880, the coal and iron company made a mortgage covering the premises in question with others, to Louis H. Meyer, as trustee, to secure an issue of bonds amounting to $3,500,000. On January 7, 1882, an amendment to the bill was filed making the Colorado Coal & Iron Company, the consolidated corporation, together with Meyer, the trustee in the mortgage, parties defendant. The purchase price of the lands to the government was $11,997.45, which was paid at the time to the proper officer-$1,813.14 in cash, and the remainder in certificates known as "Agricultural College Scrip," which by law was receivable for that pur pose. It is charged in the bill that these patents were procured by means of a fraudulent conspiracy entered into by and between Irving W. Stanton, register of the land-office, Charles A. Cook, receiver for the land district, at Pueblo, in Colorado, Alexander C. Hunt, and others unknown, who, it is alleged, organized and had incorporated the Southern Colorado Coal & Town Company. In furtherance of this conspiracy, and as the means of accomplishing its purpose, it is alleged "that neither of the supposed pre-emptors of the land as aforesaid described by their names, as stated in said several proofs of pre-emption, or in the said certificates of location, ever settled upon the said lands, or improved the same, as represented in said several proofs of pre-emption, and that no person or persons whatsoever, as represented in either of said. certificates of location, appeared or presented himself before said Stanton or Cook, or either of them, at any time, and made proof of preemption or agricultural college scrip location, either as pre-emptor or as witness for any pre-emptor as aforesaid described, as in and by said proofs of pre-emption and location certificates, or either of them, as aforesaid, is supposed, but that the same, and each of them, are false and fraudulent, and were designed, made, and executed by said Stanton and Cook and said Hunt, and the said persons to your orator unknown, or some one or more of them, in the manner aforesaid, and for the purpose of fraudulently depriving your orator of its title to the said pieces of land." It is further alleged that all the said supposed pre-emptors are fictitious persons, and their names are fictitious names, and that the supposed names that appear as witnesses to the said several proofs of pre-emption are fictitious names, and that no such person or persons, either as pre 52 emptors or as witnesses, have ever lived or been known in the county of Las Animas, where said pieces and parcels of land are located, and, in fact, that no such persons exist. * * * The answer of the Southern Colorado Coal & Town Company, filed November 2, 1881, specifically denies all the allegations of the bill alleging fraud, and denies that the said lands, or any portion of them, were mineral lands in the sense of not being lands capable of being acquired under the pre-emption law, and sets up by way of further defense that it was a purchaser of all the said lands in good faith for a valuable consideration without any knowledge or notice whatever of any or either of the pretended fraudulent acts and conspiracies in the bill alleged. Louis H. Meyer, on June 5, 1882, answered to the same effect, and by a stipulation the answer of the Southern Colorado Coal & Town Company was directed to stand as the answer of the Colorado Coal & Iron Company. Replications were duly filed, and the cause was heard on a large amount of proofs, resulting in a decree in favor of the complainant, declaring all the patents in the bill mentioned, and the subsequent conveyances of the land therein described to the defendants, to be fraudulent and void, and decreeing that they should be held for naught, and be delivered up to be canceled. The present appeal is from that decree. It was held by the Circuit Court that the charge in the bill that the supposed pre-emptors and patentees were fictitious persons, having no existence, was sufficiently proved; that, consequently, there being no grantees, no legal title passed from the United States; and that, as the defendants acquired no legal title by virtue of the supposed conveyances to them, they cannot claim protection as bona fide purchasers for value without notice of the fraud. 18 Fed. 273. It is fully established by the evidence that there were in fact no actual settlements and improvements on any of the lands, as falsely set out in the affidavits in support of the pre-emption claims, and in the certificates issued thereon. This undoubtedly constituted a fraud upon the United States sufficient in equity, as against the parties perpetrating it, or those claiming under them with notice of it, to justify the cancellation of the patents issued to them; but it is not such a fraud as prevents the passing of the legal title by the patents. It follows that, to a bill in equity to cancel the patents upon these grounds alone, the defense of a bona fide purchaser for value without notice is perfect. v. MiIn reference to such a case, it was said by this court in U. S. nor, 114 U. S. 233, 243, 5 Sup. Ct. 836: "Where the patent is the result of nothing but fraud and perjury, it is enough to hold that it conveys the legal title, and it would be going quite too far to say that it cannot be assailed by a proceeding in equity, and set aside as void, if the fraud is proved, and there are no innocent holders for value." Meader v. Norton, 11 Wall. 442, 458. It is, indeed, an elementary doctrine of equity that, where a grantor has been induced by fraud to part with the legal title to his property, he cannot reclaim it from subsequent innocent purchasers for value. Hence it becomes necessary, to support the decree of the Circuit Court, to maintain, as that court declared, that the legal title to the lands in question did not pass from the United States by virtue of the patents, because there were in fact no grantees. And it was that proposition of fact which, by the proofs introduced into the cause, the United States undertook to establish. The evidence on that point is found in the depositions of 14 persons examined as witnesses. They were called to prove, and did prove, in the first place, in respect to the several tracts of land in controversy, the facts that they had not been settled upon, and that no improvements had been made upon them by any person. They also testified, in substance, that they were acquainted, at the time of the transactions, with the lands, and were acquainted with the people then living in Las Animas county, some of them stating that they knew every white man residing at that time therein; that with the exception of one person, named Martine, there were no persons in the county at the time bearing the names specified as preemption claimants, and no persons bearing the names subscribed as witnesses to their statements; and that they never saw or heard of persons residing in the county having such names. This is the extent of this description of evidence, the weight of which is to be estimated in connection with the fact that the county of Las Animas, although sparsely settled, embraces an area extending about 150 miles from east to west, and about 40 miles from north to south. In corroboration of it, testi-. mony was introduced, on behalf of the United States, of experts in handwriting, with a view of establishing, by a comparison of the documents, that they were fabricated; which, however, was met by the opposing opinions of other experts called on the part of the defendants. This evidence we think not only inconclusive, but entitled to no weight, not at all supporting the inference sought to be drawn, that the same handwriting is traceable in the signatures of the various names. The conclusion, if warranted at all, must depend upon the statements of the other witnesses, the substance of whose testimony has already been given, and such presumptions of fact or law as legitimately arise there It certainly does not follow that no such persons in fact existed, as a necessary conclusion from the testimony of these witnesses that they knew no such persons as named in these papers. The utmost that can be said, as was said by the learned judge of the Circuit Court in delivering judgment in the case, is that "if none of them were ever in the county, and no improvements were ever made upon the land, then the proofs upon which the patents issued were false, and the inference that the papers were manufactured without the presence of any persons bearing or assuming the names of the patentees is not more unreasonable than would be the inference that 61 actual persons committed perjury themselves, and suborned as many others to perjure themselves as witnesses, in order to acquire the title." This, it is argued, establishes at least that it is more probable that the grantees were fictitious than that they were has hi |