Today in Supreme Court History: December 19, 1940

12/19/1940: U.S. v. Darby argued.

 

Comments

[Dan Schiavetta]

Sorrells v. United States, 287 U.S. 435 (decided December 19, 1932): defendant accused of liquor sale (during Prohibition) can assert entrapment defense (agent who served in same division during World War I visited with some mutual friends and drew him into a long chat about their wartime experiences, casually asked for liquor, and after third request defendant left and returned twenty minutes later with a bottle and agent paid him $5 -- aha!! you're under arrest!)

Hunt v. Springfield Fire & Marine Ins. Co., 196 U.S. 47 (decided December 19, 1904): claim on insurance policy (for loss of household furniture) properly denied because furniture subject to "deed of trust" which is the same as a "chattel mortgage" and therefore excluded under policy language (this is an example of the "federal common law" the Court used to render before Erie R.R. v. Tompkins; state supreme courts were only too happy to go along as the Court decided issues of state law for them)

Reina v. United States, 364 U.S. 507 (decided December 19, 1960): affirming contempt order; witness had refused to testify after having been granted immunity under federal narcotics law statute but claimed Fifth Amendment privilege citing danger of state prosecution; Court holds that immunity also extends to state proceedings and does not encroach on state police powers in violation of Tenth Amendment (Court notes that statute, 18 U.S.C. §1406, had language similar to other federal immunity statutes, so I suppose this holding is broadly applicable)

[Dr. Ed 2]

" Court holds that immunity also extends to state proceedings and does not encroach on state police powers in violation of Tenth Amendment"

The question that comes to immediate mind is the ability to pursue the same drug case in both state and federal court. IF the Federal immunity precludes state prosecution, then why wouldn't a not guilty on the Federal charges preclude state charges under double jeopardy?

[Dan Schiavetta]

Double jeopardy doesn't apply to a different "sovereign". One can be tried in federal court and then again in state court. This has always been the rule, most recently stated in Gamble v. United States, 2019.

[Mr. Bumble]

While that may be the "rule" how does that square with incorporation and the US Constitution being the supreme law of the land? Sovereign or not the states are first bound by the Constitution.

[Dan Schiavetta]

True.

Still . . . it seems like a wrong rule, doesn't it? The argument is that violating a federal statute is not the same as violating a state statute because one is a federal statute, and the other a state. But what if the offense is exactly the same, with the same wording as to the elements? It doesn't seem fair for a state to put someone on trial who's already been tried in federal court for the same thing.

And (I haven't looked this up) if there are "different sovereigns", isn't each state a sovereign? Can someone (for example) get acquitted in Connecticut only to face a trial for the same offense in Rhode Island?

[apedad]

Jurisdiction is probably a better term here than sovereign.

[David Nieporent]

It does seem wrong, but at the same time, one has to see the potential problem if the double jeopardy restrictions were expanded: states could effectively nullify federal criminal law by preemptively but half-assedly prosecuting people for offenses to secure acquittals, thus allowing defendants to say to the DOJ, "Ha, ha. I've already been tried; you can't try me again."

Obviously this wouldn't be so much of a problem under the original construction of the constitution in which the federal government had powers only in very narrow areas; the offenses which the federal government could prosecute would barely overlap with offenses the state government could prosecute. But now, almost any offense could be prosecuted by either level.

[Dan Schiavetta]

True!