United States v. Thompson
| Decision Date | 01 March 1920 |
| Docket Number | No. 250,250 |
| Citation | 64 L.Ed. 333,251 U.S. 407,40 S.Ct. 289 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. THOMPSON |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Mr. W. C. Herron, of Washington, D. C., for the United States.
Mr. J. E. B. Cunningham, of Harrisburg Pa., for defendant in error.
The Comptroller of the Currency, in January, 1915, closed the doors of the First National Bank of Uniontown, Pennsylvania. At the opening of the November term, 1915, of the court below, sitting at Pittsburgh, the attention of the grand jury was called by the court to alleged criminal acts connected with the administration of the affairs of the bank, and, following an investigation, the district attorney submitted to the grand jury a proposed indictment charging Thompson, the president of the bank, in 47 counts with violations of the National Bank Act. The grand jury having concluded to indict only for the first 17 of said counts, the district attorney prepared an indictment embracing them and withdrew the other 30 from consideration. The bill thus drawn was submitted to the grand jury, by it presented as a true bill, and was ordered filed.
On March 17, 1916, the Attorney General of the United States, pursuant to the Act of June 30, 1906 (34 Stat. 816 [Comp. St. § 534]), appointed a special assistant for the purpose of co-operating with the district attorney in the matter of the steps to be taken to procure the indictment of Thompson. The next session of the court was held in March, 1916, at Erie, and the district attorney and the assistant to the Attorney General, without asking authority of the court, directed the attention of the grand jury to the charges against Thompson covered by the counts as to which the grand jury at Pittsburgh had failed to make a presentment, and after hearing witnesses called by the district attorney, the Erie grand jury on the 24th day of March, found a true bill containing 30 counts covering such charges. When this indictment was presented the court expressed doubt, in view of the fact that the charges had been submitted to a previous grand jury and no presentment had been made, whether there was any authority in the Erie grand jury, at the instance of the district attorney, to consider such charges without previously obtaining the consent of the court. However, the court observed that as the grand jury had reported a true bill, it would be placed on file, with the reservation of a right to take such future action regarding it as might be deemed appropriate.
Both indictments went upon the calendar for hearing, but that result was postponed from time to time in order to afford the accused an opportunity to prepare his defense. Finally in May, 1918, when both indictments were set for trial, a motion was made to quash both, based, as far as concerned the Erie indictment, upon the ground that the grand jury had considered the subject of that indictment, not of its own motion, but upon the suggestion of the district attorney without any previous authority given him by the court. The motionw as further supported by the assertion that the presentment of a true bill by the Erie grand jury was not made——
'from the personal knowledge of any of the grand jurors, nor from the testimony of witnesses sent before the grand jury by leave or by order of the court; that the knowledge upon which said presentment was so made came to said grand jury through the evidence of certain witnesses called before said grand jury by the United States attorney without the order or permission of the court; and the subject-matter of said presentment was not called to the attention of or given in charge or submitted to the grand jury by the court.'
In addition, the motion averred that the 30 counts included in the Erie indictment covered the same offenses which were embrached by the 30 counts as to which the Pittsburgh grand jury had failed to find a true bill, and that the witnesses introduced by the district attorney at Erie were virtually the same witnesses previously by him introduced as to the same charges before the Pittsburgh grand jury.
The motion as to the Pittsburgh indictment was rejected and we put it out of view. That as to the Erie indictment was granted on the ground that the district attorney had no authority, after the action of the Pittsburgh grand jury, to resubmit the same matters to the Erie grand jury without the approval of the court, and that the Erie grand jury, for the same reason, had no authority to consider the subject. The court said:
'We find, then, a subsequent introduction of the same matters to a later grand jury with the pressure, perhaps, of a specially designated representative of the highest officer in the Department of Justice, without the approval or without the permission of the court, and perhaps to the prejudice of the defendant. * * *
'I am satisfied that the matters in connection with the finding of the indictment at Erie were more than irregularities, and, therefore, I must sustain the motion to quash the indictment found at Erie, and note an exception to the government.
'The court further wishes to state that the control of the grand jury by common law and by statute law is under the court and the proceedings are under the control of the court.
'Mr. Rush (the district attorney): May it please the court, the holding, then, of the court, as I understand it, is that the presentation of the case to the grand jury, which has been formerly ignored, would be a bar to a subsequent presentation, unless leave of court were granted.
A rehearing was asked on the ground, among others, that if the allowance of the motion to quash were adhered to, the result would be to bar the right of the government to further prosecute for the offenses charged, as in consequence of the continuances which had been granted and the delay in making the motion to quash, the statute of limitations would be operative. The rehearing was denied, the court reiterating its previous rulings and pointing out that, as the Pittsburgh indictment had not been quashed, there was opportunity for the government to prosecute for the offenses therein charged, although its right to further prosecute the offenses charged in the Erie indictment would be lost.
This direct writ of error was then prosecuted under the Criminal Appeals Act of March 2, 1907, c. 2564 (34 Stat. 1246 [Comp. St. § 1704]), both pat ies agreeing, for the purposes of a motion to dismiss for want of jurisdiction, which we now consider, that under the circumstances here disclosed the authority to review must depend upon whether the quashing of the indictment was a 'decision or judgment sustaining a special plea in bar when the defendant has not been put in jeopardy.'
As it is settled that this question is to be determined, not by form but by substance (United States v. Barber, 219 U. S. 72, 78, 31 Sup. Ct. 209, 55 L. Ed. 99; United States v. Openheimer, 242 U. S. 85, 37 Sup. Ct. 68, 61 L. Ed. 161, 3 A. L. R. 516), it follows that the fact that the ruling took the form of granting a motion to quash is negligible. Testing, then, the existence of jurisdiction by the substantial operation of the judgment, and assuming for the purpose of that test that the United States possessed the right to submit the indictment to the second grand jury without leave of court, which right was denied by the judgment below, we are of opinion that the power to review the judgment is conferred by the provision of the statute quot...
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