Hall v. Commonwealth
| Decision Date | 09 January 1923 |
| Citation | 246 S.W. 441,197 Ky. 179 |
| Parties | HALL v. COMMONWEALTH. |
| Court | Kentucky Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Circuit Court, Floyd County.
Jonathan Hall was convicted of operating a still, and he appeals. Affirmed.
John N Hamilton, of Prestonsburg, for appellant.
Charles I. Dawson, Atty. Gen., and Thos. B. McGregor, Asst. Atty Gen., for the Commonwealth.
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 2554d1. At the February term, 1922, of the court appellant was placed on trial. He pleaded former jeopardy in writing, as follows:
His plea being rejected by the court, and he found guilty and his punishment fixed at a fine of $100 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 Constitution no person shall be twice placed in jeopardy for the same offense, whereas in violation of said constitutional provisions 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.
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, 44 Am.Rep. 471, which was a forfeited bond case, we adverted generally to the subject. After disposing of the case upon other grounds the opinion says:
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 Case, 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 on 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 the 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 the 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 whisky--is an offense against the laws of the two sovereignties to which defendant alike owes 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 construction which he places upon the Eighteenth Amendment to the federal Constitution, which reads:
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Bartkus v. People of State of Illinois
...191 Ind. 410, 133 N.E. 200; Dashing v. State, 78 Ind. 357. Iowa. State v. Moore, 143 Iowa 240, 121 N.W. 1052. Kentucky. Hall v. Commonwealth, 197 Ky. 179, 246 S.W. 441. Louisiana. State v. Breaux, 161 La. 368, 108 So. 773, affirmed per curiam 273 U.S. 645, 47 S.Ct. 241, 71 L.Ed. 820. Maine.......
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People v. Mezy, Docket Nos. 101689
...for dual prosecutions by the state and federal governments. Nance v. State, 123 Ga.App. 410, 181 S.E.2d 295 (1971), Hall v. Commonwealth, 197 Ky. 179, 246 S.W. 441 (1923), State v. Castonguay, 240 A.2d 747 (Me., 1968), Bankston v. State, 236 So.2d 757 (Miss., 1970), State v. Turley, 518 S.W......
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State v. Rogers
...are so similar in nature, we are of the opinion that they should be construed and interpreted in the same manner. Hall v. Commonwealth, 197 Ky. 179, 246 S.W. 441 (1923); State v. Hite, 3 Wash.App. 9, 472 P.2d 600 (1970). Furthermore, other states which have been presented with the issue of ......
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