Rupert v. State

1913 OK CR 101, 131 P. 713, 9 Okla. Crim. 226, 1913 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 117
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedApril 19, 1913
DocketNos. A-1319, A-1320.
StatusPublished
Cited by37 cases

This text of 1913 OK CR 101 (Rupert v. State) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rupert v. State, 1913 OK CR 101, 131 P. 713, 9 Okla. Crim. 226, 1913 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 117 (Okla. Ct. App. 1913).

Opinion

DOYLE, J.

The single question presented for our decision is: Could the county court legally impose the judgments and sentences appealed from? Otherwise stated, has a court the power to revise and increase a judgment and sentence at the same term after it has' been executed and satisfied?

The general power of a court to reconsider its judgment and sentence and reverse, vacate, or modify it at any time during the term in which it was rendered, or to increase or diminish the sentence which it has imposed, where the original sentence has not been executed or put into operation, is undeniable. Bish. New Crim, Proc. sec. 1288, and cases cited. This power is inherent in all courts of record. However, it would seem there must, in the nature of the power thus exercised by the court, be in criminal cases some limit to it. It is clear that a court cannot pass two sentences for the same offense, to be enforced at the same time. And the validity of a *229 second judgment and sentence must be because the first judgment and sentence is legally annulled or revoked and made void.

That no person shall be twice put in jeopardy for the same offense is a universally accepted principle of the common law, and this principle has been embodied in the federal Constitution and in all state Constitutions, and it is incorporated in the Constitution of the state of Oklahoma by express provisions, as follows:

“Nor shall any person be twice put in jeopardy of life or liberty for the same offense.” (Sec. 21, Bill of Rights.)

Jeopardy, in its constitutional or common-law sense, has a strict application to criminal prosecutions only. The word “jeopardy,” as used in the Constitution, signifies the danger of conviction and punishment which the defendant in a criminal prosecution incurs when put upon trial before a court of competent jurisdiction under a valid indictment, information, or complaint, and in this use it is applied only to strictly criminal prosecutions. Stout v. State, 36 Okla. 744, 130 Pac. 553.

“A person is not in legal jeopardy until put upon trial before a court of competent jurisdiction under an information or indictment sufficient in form and substance to sustain a conviction.” (Cooley, Const. Lim. [7th Ed.] 467, and cases cited.)

We think this provision of the Bill of Rights, and the principle therein declared, is broad enough to mean that no person can be twice lawfully punished -for the same offense. The one follows from the other, and this constitutional provision is designed and intended to protect the accused from a double punishment as much as to protect him from two trials. For this reason we think that where a judgment and sentence has been executed and satisfied that ends the prosecution, exhausts the power of the court, and terminates its jurisdiction, and the court is without power or jurisdiction to render another judgment and sentence in the case.

The leading ease upon this question is Ex parte Lange, 18 Wall. 163, 21 L. Ed. 872. In that case the defendant was *230 convicted of appropriating mail bags, of the value of less than $25, the punishment for which offense, as provided by statute, was imprisonment for not more than one year-or a fine of not less than $10 or more than $200. The sentence was one year’s imprisonment and $200 fine. The defendant was committed in pursuance of the sentence and paid the fine the day after his commitment. On the second day after his commitment he was brought by habeas corpus before the same judge who sentenced him, who vacated the former judgment and sentenced the defendant anew to one year’s imprisonment. The case came before the Supreme Court of the United States on habeas corpus, and the defendant was discharged, on the ground that, where a statute imposes as a punishment a fine or imprisonment, and the court has both fined and imprisoned the defendant, who thereupon pays the fine, the court has no power, even during the same term, to modify the judgment by imposing imprisonment instead of the former sentence. One of the alternative requirements of the statute having been satisfied, the power of the court as to the offense was at an end. Mr. Justice Miller, delivering the opinion of the court, said:

“The judgment of the court to this effect being rendered and carried into, execution before the expiration of the term, can the judge vacate that sentence and substitute fine or imprisonment and cause the latter sentence also to be executed? Or, if the judgment of the court is that the convict be imprisoned for four months, and he enters immediately upon the period of punishment, can the court, after it has been fully completed, because it is still in session of the same term, vacate that judgment and render another, for three or six months’ imprisonment, or for a fine? Not only the gross injustice of such a proceeding, but the inexpediency of placing such a power in the hands of any tribunal, is manifest.
“If there is anything settled in the jurisprudence of England and America, it is that no man can be twice lawfully punished for the same offense. And though there have been nice questions in the application of this rule to cases in which the act charged was such as to come within the definition of more than one statutory offense, or to bring the party within *231 the jurisdiction of more than one court, there has never been any doubt of its entire and complete protection of the party when a second punishment is proposed in the same court, on the same facts, for the same statutory offense.
“The principle finds expression in more than one form in the maxims of the common law. In civil cases the doctrine is expressed by the maxim that no man shall be twice vexed for one and the same cause. ‘Nemo debet bis vexari pro una et eadem causa.’ It is upon the foundation of this maxim that the plea of a former judgment for the same matter, whether it be in .favor of the defendant or against him, is a good bar to an action. In the criminal law the same principle, more directly applicable to the case before us, is expressed in the Latin, ‘Nemo bis punitur pro eodem delicto / or, as Coke has it, ‘Nemo defbet bis puniri pro uno delicto.’ No one can be twice punished for the same crime or misdemeanor/ is the translation of the maxim by Sergeant Hawkins. Blaekstone, in his Commentaries, cites the same maxim as the reason why, if a person has been found guilty of manslaughter on an indictment, and has had benefit of clergy, and suffered the judgment of the law, he cannot afterwards be appealed. Of course, if there had been no punishment, the. appeal would lie, and the party would be subject to the danger of another form of trial. But by reason of this universal principle that no person shall be twice punished for the same offense that ancient right of appeal. was gone when the punishment had once been suffered. The protection against the action of the same court in inflicting punishment twice must surely be as necessary, and as clearly within the maxim, as protection from chances or danger of a second punishment on a second' trial.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1913 OK CR 101, 131 P. 713, 9 Okla. Crim. 226, 1913 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 117, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rupert-v-state-oklacrimapp-1913.