Source: cases/18usc1343/us-544-349-pasquantino-v-us.case
Case source: https://www.neochart.com/catalog/cases/us/volume_544/0349_01/index.html
Valuable entitlements like these are “property” as that term ordinarily is employed.
The right to be paid money has long been thought to be a species of property.
Taking the latter element first, Canada’s right to uncollected excise taxes on the liquor petitioners imported into Canada is “property” in its hands.
Their offense was complete the moment they executed the scheme inside the United States; “[t]he wire fraud statute punishes the scheme, not its success.”
This, then, was a scheme “designed to defraud by representations,” Durland v. United States, 161 U. S. 306, 313 (1896), and therefore a “scheme or artifice to defraud” Canada of taxes due on the smuggled goods.
Unlike the treaties and the antismuggling statute, the wire fraud statute punishes fraudulent use of domestic wires, whether or not such conduct constitutes smuggling, occurs aboard a vessel, or evades foreign taxes.
Petitioners used U. S. interstate wires to execute a scheme to defraud a foreign sovereign of tax revenue.
The presumption against extraterritoriality, which guides courts in the absence of congressional direction, provides ample cause to conclude that § 1343 does not extend to the instant scheme.
casedsl 1 case /us/544/0349-01 name Pasquantino v. United States cite 544 U.S. 349 (2005) court Supreme Court of the United States date 2005-04-26 url catalog/cases/us/volume_544/0349_01/index.html source ir/caselaw/us_544.jsonl sha1=dc92e1da989a35b453c603d49d8a1213422f6cef chars=60000 law 18usc1343 role applied posture criminal; jury convictions for wire fraud (scheme to smuggle liquor into Canada without paying Canadian excise taxes); motion to dismiss indictment denied; CA4 panel reversed, en banc CA4 affirmed; certiorari on whether a plot to defraud a foreign government of tax revenue violates 1343 result claimant-won element property : satisfied [proved] variant entitlement-to-money/foreign-government-excise-tax-evaded-by-smuggling fact @1527..1716 [supports] | Uncontested evidence at trial showed that Canadian taxes then due on alcohol purchased in the United States and transported to Canada were approximately double the liquor’s purchase. price. fact @5745..5835 [supports] | Had petitioners complied with this legal obligation, they would have paid money to Canada. fact @8324..8469 [supports] | Here, by contrast, the Government alleged and proved that petitioners’ scheme aimed at depriving Canada of money to which it was entitled by law. rule @5362..5446 | Valuable entitlements like these are “property” as that term ordinarily is employed. rule @6239..6316 | The right to be paid money has long been thought to be a species of property. held @4982..5132 | Taking the latter element first, Canada’s right to uncollected excise taxes on the liquor petitioners imported into Canada is “property” in its hands. gloss An uncollected tax debt is property in the taxing government's hands (money legally due = money in hand); distinguished from Cleveland's purely regulatory interest in an unissued licence. That the victim is a foreign sovereign makes no difference. element scheme : satisfied [proved] variant concealment-as-misrepresentation/undeclared-goods-smuggled-past-customs fact @964..1082 [supports] | They employed Hilts and others to drive the liquor over the Canadian border, without paying the required excise taxes. fact @1089..1224 [supports] | The drivers avoided paying taxes by hiding the liquor in their vehicles and failing to declare the goods to Canadian customs officials. fact @8852..9000 [supports] | The evidence showed that petitioners routinely concealed imported liquor from Canadian officials and failed to declare those goods on customs forms. rule @29931..30084 | Their offense was complete the moment they executed the scheme inside the United States; “[t]he wire fraud statute punishes the scheme, not its success.” held @9132..9342 | This, then, was a scheme “designed to defraud by representations,” Durland v. United States, 161 U. S. 306, 313 (1896), and therefore a “scheme or artifice to defraud” Canada of taxes due on the smuggled goods. gloss Hiding goods and not declaring them is treated as an implied representation to customs that there was nothing to declare. The common-law revenue rule does not carve tax-evasion schemes against foreign sovereigns out of "scheme to defraud" (Part III), and the prosecution is a domestic, not extraterritorial, application (Part IV). element wire : satisfied [conceded] variant telephone-orders/interstate-calls-to-buy-goods-for-smuggling fact @760..918 [supports] | According to the evidence presented at trial, the Pasquantinos, while in New York, ordered liquor over the telephone from discount package stores in Maryland. rule @9617..9833 | Unlike the treaties and the antismuggling statute, the wire fraud statute punishes fraudulent use of domestic wires, whether or not such conduct constitutes smuggling, occurs aboard a vessel, or evades foreign taxes. held @29824..29930 | Petitioners used U. S. interstate wires to execute a scheme to defraud a foreign sovereign of tax revenue. gloss CAVEAT: uncontested point resting on one sentence; not a contested ruling on the wire element. gloss Use of the wires (and its interstate character, New York to Maryland) was not disputed in this Court; only scheme and property were. The sentence is the premise of the Court's answer to the extraterritoriality objection, not a contested ruling on the wire element. element scheme : not-satisfied [law] scope dissent opinion Ginsburg, J., dissenting (joined by Breyer; Scalia and Souter in part) variant concealment-as-misrepresentation/undeclared-goods-smuggled-past-customs held @51565..51756 | The presumption against extraterritoriality, which guides courts in the absence of congressional direction, provides ample cause to conclude that § 1343 does not extend to the instant scheme. gloss The dissent would hold a scheme whose only wrong is evasion of foreign customs and tax law outside 1343 (presumption against extraterritoriality, revenue rule, the specific antismuggling statute 18 U.S.C. 546, rule of lenity). The dissent is truncated by the 60000-char cap and was only skimmed. misfit Most of the opinion (Part III) decides that the common-law revenue rule does not narrow the statute, and Part IV that the prosecution is not extraterritorial. Neither is a ruling on a declared element: the revenue rule is an asserted implied exception (no declared defense id), and the law file's `domestic-application(scheme, wire)` is a constraint, which a case block cannot cite (known gap: relations/constraints). Both are only glossed under `scheme`. misfit Basis is double: the Court construes "property" and "scheme to defraud" as questions of law (the challenge was that the indictment stated no offense) AND says the Government "alleged and proved" the facts; recorded as [proved] because the convictions are affirmed. One basis per block; known gap. misfit wire is recorded `satisfied [conceded]` on the strength of "the only two [elements] that petitioners dispute here"; interstate and furtherance rest on the same undisputed telephone orders and get no block. The Court never says how the calls furthered the scheme. misfit Footnotes reserve whether a foreign government may bring civil RICO on wire-fraud predicates for evaded taxes, and decline a Blakely sentencing claim; restitution to Canada under the MVRA is discussed. None fits an element.