United States v. Storrs
| Decision Date | 13 December 1926 |
| Docket Number | No. 95,95 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. STORRS et al |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
The Attorney General and Mr. Assistant Attorney General Donovan, for the United States.
Messrs. Mahlon E. Wilson, Dan B. Shields, and Albert R. Barnes, all of Salt Lake City, Utah, for defendants in error.
The defendants in error were indicted for conspiracy to violate and violation of section 215 of the Penal Code (Comp. St. § 10385), punishing use of the mails for the purpose of executing a scheme to defraud. They pleaded in abatement that when the grand jurors were investigating the charge the official court stenographer was present and took down the evidence; that the district attorney was also present and undertook to give a summary of the evidence to the grand jurors, and that he advised them that any indictment, if found, must be against all the defendants named. On these grounds it was prayed that the indictment be abated and that the defendants should not be required to answer the same. The District Court overruled a demurrer, sustained the plea on the evidence and entered judgment that the indictment be abated. It is certified in the record that when the judgment was entered the statute of limitations had run and that therefore the United States will be barred from further prosecution of the defendants. The United States brings this writ of error on the ground that in these circumstances the plea was in substance a 'special plea in bar' within the meaning of the Criminal Appeals Act of March 2, 1907, c. 2564, 34 St. 1246 (Comp. St. § 1704).
It is true that there is less strictness now in dealing with a plea in abatement than there was a hundred years ago. The question is less what it is called than what it is. But while the quality of an act depends upon its circumstances the quality of the plea depends upon its contents. As was said at the argument, it cannot be that a plea filed a week earlier is what it purports to be, and in its character is, but a week later becomes a plea in bar because of the extrinsic circumstance that the statute of limitations has run. The plea looks only to abating the indictment not to barring the action. It has no greater effect in any circumstances. If another indictment cannot be brought, that is not because of the judgment on the plea, but is an independent result of a fact having no relation to the plea and...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
Welsh, Ii v. United States
...capable of bearing a contemporary construction as notions of theology and philosophy evolve. Cf. United States v. Storrs, 272 U.S. 652, 47 S.Ct. 221, 71 L.Ed. 460 (1926). This language appears, however, in a congressional enactment; it is not a phrase of the Constitution, like 'religion' or......
-
United States v. Heath
...validity of an indictment on other grounds "looks only to abating the indictment not to barring the action." United States v. Storrs, 272 U.S. 652, 654, 47 S.Ct. 221, 71 L.Ed. 460. 22 Crowley v. United States, 194 U.S. 461, 24 S.Ct. 731, 48 L.Ed. 1075. 23 For examples of pleas in abatement,......
-
State v. Wong
...run while the motions to dismiss were pending, and held that the judgment therefore was not 'in bar,' following United States v. Storrs, 272 U.S. 652, 47 S.Ct. 221, 71 L.Ed. 460. Cf., United States v. Brodson, motion to certify appeal to Supreme Court denied, 234 F.2d 97, dismissal reversed......
-
United States v. Mersky, 31
...64 S.Ct. 359, 362, 88 L.Ed. 290; United States v. Murdock, 284 U.S. 141, 147, 52 S.Ct. 63, 64, 76 L.Ed. 210; United States v. Storrs, 272 U.S. 652, 654, 47 S.Ct. 221, 71 L.Ed. 460. As established by these precedents, the focal point of inquiry is not the form of the defendant's plea, but th......