Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 8.djvu/274

260 FEDERAL REPORTER. �tlie person must have some authority over the prosecution of that partioular offerice, whether lie be an oificer of the law oi- not. The mere faet that he is an officer does not answer the purpose ; he must be connected with the prosecution, and have authority through that connection over the prisoner. Reg, v. Moore, supra,- Com. v. Smith, supra. I do not think it is necessary that the legal proeeedings shall have actua;lly commenced, but they must be impending or contem- plated, and, perhaps, under. the strict rule, the aocused must, in sorne way, be in the actual oustodyof the person in authority, or suppose himself so to be. The cases of master or mistress occupying that relation .will be found to be where the ofienoe concerned them in their persons or property, and it does not arise alone out of their attitude of master orniistress. Beg.\. Moore, supra; Com. v. Smithy supra. .Not even does the relation of a parent to a child of tender years brings the case within the rule where the parent is unaffected by the crime. The Queen v. Reeve, L. E. 1 C. G. 362. �It was said that Bennett was a detective and also the agent of the owners of the goods, and stood for them in the relation of prosecutor. It is to be first obaerved that he was not a police officer, although he calls himself a detective, but only a private agent employed, not to prosecute the crime, or to procure evidence for that purpose, but to gather up the goods. or their value. He undoubtedly, during the progrees of that employment, sought to influence the parties by sug- gestions of prosecution, under the federal statutes, whieh he printed and circulated ; but, as I understand the evidence, not till after the alleged confession of the defendant in this case. And at that time he had been advised by counsel, if I remember the testimony, and by the assistant United States district attorney, that no prosecution would lie in this court. But take all he said at the strongest, and it may well be doubted, if he had been in authority over the prosecution, whether the confession would be excluded under the latest cases. The Queen v. Jarvis, L. E. 1 C. C. 96; The Queen v. Reeve, Id. 362. But I did not place my judgment on this ground, but on the more substantial one that he occupied no such relation to the prosecution as would exelude the evidence of the confession; conceding that it would have been excluded if he had been in authority. We have in our courts no auch quasi officer as a prosecutor, as known to the com- mon law and our state practice. At common law some person, gen- erally the party injured, though it might be another person, must he named as prosecutor, except in special cases. Andwithout this there could be no prosecution. 1 Arch. Crim. Pr. (8th Ed.) 245, an l ��� �