Hall v. Commonwealth

246 S.W. 441, 197 Ky. 179, 1923 Ky. LEXIS 593
CourtCourt of Appeals of Kentucky
DecidedJanuary 9, 1923
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 246 S.W. 441 (Hall v. Commonwealth) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Hall v. Commonwealth, 246 S.W. 441, 197 Ky. 179, 1923 Ky. LEXIS 593 (Ky. Ct. App. 1923).

Opinion

[180]*180Opinion op the Court by

Chiep Justice Sampson—

Affirming.

Appellant Jonathan Hall was indicted in the Floyd circuit court, at its February term, 1921, charged with the' offense of operating a moonshine still in violation of our statutes, section 255M-1. At the February term, 1922,. of the court appellant was placed on trial. He pleaded former jeopardy in writing, as follows:

“The defendant, Jonathan Hall, .says that he has been convicted of the offense charged in the indictment by the judgment of the United States District Court,. Eastern District of Kentucky, at Catlettsburg, Kentucky, rendered on the 26th day of May, A. D., 1921, May term.

' “Upon the above plea he prays the judgment of the court. ’ ’

His plea being rejected 'by the court and he found guilty and his punishment fixed at a fine of $100.00 and by confinement in the county jail for one day, he appeals, urging a reversal because, he 'says, that by a provision of ■the Federal, as well as the state Constitutions, no person •shall be twice .placed in jeopardy for the same offense, whereas in violation of said constitutional provision he has been twice fined for the identical offense, once in the Federal court and a second time in the state court. It is conceded by the Commonwealth that Hall was duly indicted, tried and convicted in the United States district court, as set forth in his plea of former jeopardy, and his fine fixed at $75.00.

It seems that this court has not had before it nor passed upon the precise question presented by this appeal except that in the case of Commonwealth v. Overby, 80 Ky. 208, which was a forfeited bond case, we adverted generally to the subject. After disposing of the case upon other grounds the opinion says: “Manifestly, the defendant in this case could not have been tried and convicted of the .same offense in the United 'States circuit court. For, though tried by the United States court, still it was the same offense for which he was held to answer in the state court, denounced alike by the laws of the United States and of this state.” This is the only case cited by appellant Hall in support of his plea of former jeopardy which in any way sustains his position. In the Overby ease, supra, the charge was counterfeiting United States treasury notes and the defendant had failed to appear and his bail bond had been forfeited. The sureties [181]*181on the bail bond in the forfeiture proceedings made' response that on the day following the execution of the bail bond Overby was arrested by an officer of the United States and carried before a United States commissioner, and by him required to appear and answer at the next term thereafter of the United States district court, held in the city of Louisville, the same charge for which he had been required to appear and answer in. the .state court; that failing to give bail in the Federal court he was committed to the jail of Jefferson county, where he remained until February, 1881, when he was indicted, tried and convicted in the Federal court for the said offense and sentenced to confinement in the penitentiary in the state of New York for a term of five years. He was actually in jail in the custody of the United States court at the time the bail bond was forfeited on which the proceeding was based. It, therefore, appears that t'he issue in the Overby case was whether the actual confinement in the Jefferson county jail, under the orders of the Federal court was sufficient excuse to exonerate the sureties who had made his bond in the Christian circuit court. The paragraph above quoted from the opinion seems, therefore, not to have been pertinent to the single question involved in the said opinion, and may be regarded as dictum.

The general rule as laid down by text writers and courts generally is that the same transaction may constitute an offense against the laws of the United States and also against the laws of a state, and in such case the accused may be punished under both statutes, and an acquittal or conviction in the courts of either is no bar to an indictment and conviction in the other. This, is based upon the theory that the United States government is a separate and distinct sovereignty from that of the state; and as the -same act sometimes, as in this case — illicit manufacture of whiskey — is-an offense against the laws of the two sovereignties to which the defendant alike owe© allegiance and submission to law, he may be required to respond in the courts of both, and if convicted in each, suffer the penalty prescribed by the laws of the respective sovereignties.

The basis of appellant’s insistence that his trial in the Federal court is a bar to his prosecution in the state court for the same offense is rested both upon the identity and singleness of the facts and the peculiar construe[182]*182tion which he places upon the Eighteenth Amendment to the Federal 'Constitution, which reads:

“Section 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from, the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof, for beverage purposes, is hereby prohibited.

“Section 2. The Congress and the several states have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”

He insists that as section 2 of said amendment confers upon Congress and the several states concurrent power to enforce prohibition by appropriate legislation that this is a joint power, or a power conferred upon either the Federal government or the state government to enforce the provisions of the first section of said amendment by appropriate penalties, but that both could not in a single ease growing out of the same facts exact the penalties. It would appear, however, that the Federal amendment does not change the rule upon the subject, nor was it intended to change the double sovereignty theory which has prevailed in this .country so long, giving to the United States government a right to punish for infringement of its statutes growing out of the same facts which constitute a breach of the state law and for which the offender has already suffered the penalties denounced by the state statutes. Manifestly the Federal government is one sovereignty with full power and authority under the Constitution to prohibit the manufacture and sale of intoxicating liquors, .and equally clear is the sovereignty of the several state governments with respect to the enforcement of prohibition, as in the punishment of any and all other crimes, and the states must therefore possess.the power to pass and enforce legislation to prohibit the manufacture and sale of such intoxicants. In this view the trial of an offender against the prohibition laws in the courts of one of these sovereign-ties is not a bar to a trial and conviction in the other. In the recent case of the United States v. Vito Lanza, et al., decided December 11, 1922, the Supreme Court of the United States, speaking through Chief Justice Taft, disposed of the exact question under consideration, as fellows :

“The amendment was adopted for the purpose of establishing prohibition as a national policy reaching [183]*183every part of the United -States and affecting transactions which are essentially local or intrastate, as well as those pertaining to interstate or foreign icotmmeroe.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
246 S.W. 441, 197 Ky. 179, 1923 Ky. LEXIS 593, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/hall-v-commonwealth-kyctapp-1923.