Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/397/387/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 18:00:58+00:00

Document:
Held: The State of Florida and is municipalities are not separate sovereign entities each entitled to impose punishment for the same alleged crime, as the judicial power of the municipal courts and the state courts of general jurisdiction springs from the same organic law, and the District Court of Appeal erred in holding that a second trial in a state court for the identical offense for which a person was tried in a municipal court did not constitute double jeopardy. Pp. 397 U. S. 390-395.
213 So.2d 623, vacated and remanded.
imposed by the municipal court of St. Petersburg, Florida.
"Assuming, but not holding, that the violations of the municipal ordinances were included offenses of the crime of grand larceny, the appellant nevertheless has not twice been put in jeopardy, because, even if a person has been tried in a municipal court for the identical offense with which he is charged in a state court, this would not be a bar to the prosecution of such person in the proper state court. This has been the law of this state since 1894, as is established in the case of Theisen v. McDavid, 34 Fla. 440, 16 So. 321. . . . The Florida Supreme Court has followed the Theisen case, supra, throughout the years, and, as recently as July 17, 1968, in Hilliard v. City of Gainesville, Fla., 213 So.2d 689, reaffirmed the Theisen case and stated as follows: "
act is also proscribed as a crime by a state statute. An offender may be tried for the municipal offense in the city court and for the crime in the proper state court. Conviction or acquittal in either does not bar prosecution in the other."
We act on the statement of the District Court of Appeal that the second trial on the felony charge by information "was based on the same acts of the appellant as were involved in the violation of the two city ordinances" and on the assumption that the ordinance violations were included offenses of the felony charge. [Footnote 1] Whether, in fact and law, petitioner committed separate offenses which could support separate charges was not decided by the Florida courts, nor do we reach that question. What is before us is the asserted power of the two courts within one State to place petitioner on trial for the same alleged crime.
"Political subdivisions of States counties, cities, or whatever -- never were and never have been considered as sovereign entities. Rather, they have been traditionally regarded as subordinate governmental instrumentalities created by the State to assist in the carrying out of state governmental functions."
Reynolds v. Sims, 377 U. S. 533, 377 U. S. 575 (1964).
"(a) Establishment. Municipalities may be established or abolished and their charters amended pursuant to general or special law. . . . "
"(b) Powers. Municipalities shall have governmental, corporate and proprietary powers to enable them to conduct municipal government, perform municipal functions and render municipal services . . . ."
"[T]he judicial power of the State of Florida is vested in a supreme court . . . and such other courts, including municipal courts . . . as the legislature may from time to time ordain and establish."
"An offense against the United States can only be punished under its authority and in the tribunals created by its laws, whereas an offense against a State can be punished only by its authority and in its tribunals. The same act . . . may constitute two offenses, one against the United States and the other against a State. But these things cannot be predicated of the relations between the United States and the Philippines. The Government of a State does not derive its powers from the United States, while the Government of the Philippines owes its existence wholly to the United States, and its judicial tribunals exert all their powers by authority of the United States. The jurisdiction and authority of the United States over that territory and its inhabitants, for all legitimate purposes of government, is paramount. So that the cases holding that the same acts committed in a State of the Union may constitute an offense against the United States and also a distinct offense against the State do not apply here, where the two tribunals that tried the accused exert all their powers under and by authority of the same government -- that of the United States."
206 U.S. at 206 U. S. 354-355.
petitioner could not lawfully be tried both by the municipal government and by the State of Florida. In this context, a "dual sovereignty" theory is an anachronism, and the second trial constituted double jeopardy violative of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution.
"even if a person has been tried in a municipal court for the identical offense with which he is charged in a state court, this would not be a bar to the prosecution of such person in the proper state court."
MR. JUSTICE BLACK joins the opinion of the Court, but nonetheless adheres to the views expressed in his dissenting opinions in Bartkus v. Illinois, 359 U. S. 121, 359 U. S. 150 (1959), and Abbate v. United States, 359 U. S. 187, 359 U. S. 201 (1959).
We accept the assumption of the District Court of Appeal although the record is not adequate to verify its accuracy. For example, no part of the record of the municipal court conviction has been incorporated into the record in the present case.
"brief and argue [the] question of retroactivity of Benton v. Maryland, [395 U.S. 784], and whether that decision is applicable to this case."
"to establish, and to abolish, municipalities[,] to provide for their government, to prescribe their jurisdiction and powers, and to alter or amend the same at any time."
See also Puerto Rico v. Shell Co. (P.R.) Ltd., 302 U. S. 253 (1937), where the Court in dicta approved of Grafton.
If petitioner has committed offenses not embraced within the charges against him in the municipal court, he may, or may not, be subject to further prosecution depending on statutes of limitation and other restrictions not covered by the double jeopardy restraints of the Constitutions of Florida and of the United States.
* I adhere to the Court's holding in Ashe v. Swenson, post at 397 U. S. 437 n. 1, that our decision in Benton v. Maryland, 395 U. S. 784 (1969), holding the Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment applicable to the States, is "fully retroactive.'" See also North Carolina v. Pearce, 395 U. S. 711 (1969).

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