Charles Carlesi v. People of the State of New York
| Decision Date | 06 April 1914 |
| Docket Number | No. 679,679 |
| Citation | 58 L.Ed. 843,233 U.S. 51,34 S.Ct. 576 |
| Parties | CHARLES CARLESI, alias Charles Carlese, Plff. in Err., v. PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Messrs. Almuth C. Vandiver, George Gordon Battle, John Caldwell Myers, James E. Brande, Joseph Weber, and J. Joseph Lilly for plaintiff in error.
[Syllabus from pages 52-55 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Robert S. Johnstone, Stanley L. Richter, and Charles S. Whitman for defendant in error.
The plaintiff in error was accused of the crime 'of forgery in the second degree as a second offense.' The indictment contained a recital of the prior offense relied on, that is, a conviction in the circuit court of the United States for the southern district of New York, and a sentence for three and one-half years in the penitentiary for the crime of selling and having in possession counterfeit coin. The statute of the state of New York, which was the authority for referring to the prior conviction, was as follows:
'A person who, after having been convicted within this state, of a felony, or an attempt to commit a felony, or of petit larceny, or, under the laws of any other state, government, or country, of a crime which, if committed within this state, would be a felony, commits any crime, within this state, is punishable, upon conviction of such second offense, as follows:
'1. If the subsequent crime is such that, upon a first conviction, the offender might be punished, in the discretion of the court, by imprisonment for life, he must be sentenced to imprisonment in a state prison for life.
[Penal Laws (Consol. Laws, chap. 40) § 1941.]
The accused pleaded not guilty, and while admitting the truth of the recitals in the indictment as to his prior conviction, sentence, and service of time in the penitentiary, moved to strike from the indictment all reference to those subjects, and insisted on his right to be tried without at all considering or in any manner referring to the prior conviction and sentence on the ground of a pardon granted to him by the President of the United States after he had completed his term of service under the prior conviction. The pardon relied upon was offered in evidence. On the trial which followed the refusal of the court to grant the motion to strike out or to rule as requested, the alleged Federal right based upon the pardon was further urged upon the court in every conceivable form, and was adversely acted upon, and after conviction was also pressed and adversely passed upon in both the appellate division (154 App. Div. 481, 139 N. Y. Supp. 309) and in the court of appeals of New York (208 N. Y. 547, 101 N. E. 1114). And it is the adverse ruling of the court of appeals concerning such asserted Federal right which forms the sole basis for this writ of error, addressed to the trial court because of the action of the court of appeals in remitting the entire record to that court.
The arguments at bar cover a wider field than is essential to be considered in order to pass upon the question for decision. As the state courts held that the statute directed the consideration of the prior conviction despite the pardon, we must treat the case as if the statute so expressly commanded, and test its repugnancy to the Constitution of the United States upon that assumption. The issue is a narrow one, and involves not the determination of the operation and effect of a pardon within the jurisdiction of the sovereignty granting it, but simply requires it to be decided how far a pardon granted as to an offense committed against the United States operates, so to speak, extraterritorially as a limitation upon the states, excluding them from considering the conviction of the prior and pardoned offense against the United States in a prosecution for a subsequent state offense. It may not be questioned that the states are without right directly or indirectly to restrict the national government in the exertion of its legitimate powers. It is therefore to be conceded...
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