Source: https://www.legalcrystal.com/case/90666/united-states-vs-mason
Timestamp: 2016-12-05 04:38:56
Document Index: 106799309

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 5509', '§ 5508', '§ 5508', '§ 5509', '§ 5509', '§ 5509']

United States Vs Mason - Citation 90666 - Court Judgment | LegalCrystal
Save as PDF Add a Tag Add a Note Semantics Visualize United States Vs. Mason - Court Judgment	LegalCrystal Citationlegalcrystal.com/90666CourtUS Supreme CourtDecided OnApr-05-1909Case Number213 U.S. 115AppellantUnited StatesRespondentMasonExcerpt:.....court of the federal offense charged,
the defendants had been lawfully acquitted of the alleged state offense by a state court having full jurisdiction in the premises. this interpretation recognizes the power of the state, by its own tribunals, to try offenses against its laws, and to acquit or punish the alleged offender, as the facts may justify.
in this connection, it has been suggested that the state might, under this interpretation, defeat the full operation of the act of congress. not at all. the interpretation we have given to § 5509 will not prevent the trial of the defendants upon the charge of conspiracy, and their punishment, if guilty, according to § 5508 -- namely, by a fine not exceeding $5,000 and imprisonment not more than ten years...... Judgment:
United States v. Mason - 213 U.S. 115 (1909)
On an appeal taken in a criminal case by the United States under the act of March 2, 1907, c. 2564, 34 Stat. 1246, from the ruling of the circuit court sustaining a special plea in bar, this Court is limited in its review to that ruling, and cannot consider other grounds of demurrer to the indictment.
The first count of the indictment -- stating it generally -- charged the defendants with an unlawful, malicious, and felonious conspiracy to injure, oppress, threaten, and intimidate certain named persons, citizens of the United States, in the free exercise and enjoyment of a right and privilege secured to them and to each of them by the Constitution and laws of the United States, in this, that the said conspirators injured, oppressed, threatened, and intimidated those citizens, in the free exercise and enjoyment of their right and privilege as special agents and employees of the Department of Justice, and as citizens and agents of the United States, to investigate, discover, inform of, and report to the proper officer all violations of the laws of the United States and the evidence relating thereto, in the matter of the fraudulent and unlawful entry of coal and other public lands of the United States in Colorado, theretofore subject to entry under the laws of the United States. It was further charged in the same count that, in pursuance of such unlawful and felonious conspiracy,
and to effect the object thereof,
the defendants, within the District of Colorado, did kill and murder one Joseph A. Walker.
The second count differs from the first only in the particular that it charges that the alleged conspiracy and murder was because of the persons against whom the conspiracy was formed
having freely exercised
the right and privilege specified in the first count.
The defendants filed special pleas in bar of so much of each count of the indictment as charged that the defendants,
in the act of violating
§ 5508, killed and murdered Walker for the purpose of giving effect to the alleged conspiracy. To each special plea the government filed a demurrer.
"That a writ of error may be taken by and on behalf of the United States from the district or circuit courts direct to the Supreme Court of the United States in all criminal cases, in the following instances, to-wit: from a decision or judgment quashing, setting aside, or sustaining a demurrer to any indictment, or any count thereof, where such decision or judgment is based upon the invalidity or construction of the statute upon which the indictment is founded. From a decision arresting a judgment of conviction for insufficiency of the indictment, where such decision is based upon the invalidity or construction of the statute upon which the indictment is founded.
The writ of error in all such cases shall be taken within thirty days after the decision or judgment has been rendered, and shall be diligently prosecuted and shall have precedence over all other cases. Pending the prosecution and determination of the writ of error in the foregoing instances, the defendant shall be admitted to bail on his own recognizance:
that no writ of error shall be taken by or allowed the United States in any case where there has been a verdict in favor of the defendant."
Only that part of the above Act of March 2, 1907, is applicable to the present case which authorizes a writ of error by the United States "from the decision or judgment sustaining a special plea in bar, when the defendant has not been put in jeopardy." In reviewing that decision, may we go beyond the ruling in the court below on the special pleas in bar, and consider the various grounds of demurrer to the indictment? That question is answered in the much-considered case of
The question thus presented is within a very narrow compass, and involves an inquiry as to the meaning and scope of § 5509. The conspiracy for which the defendants were indicted was an offense against the laws of the United States. It is nonetheless so, notwithstanding the requirement in that section as to the punishment to be inflicted upon its appearing that, in the act of committing the alleged federal offense, the defendants committed some felony or misdemeanor against the laws of the state. The reference in that section to an offense committed against the state was not for the purpose of restricting or suspending the power of the state to determine whether its laws had been violated, and to punish the offender therefor. That reference was for the purpose only of measuring the punishment for the conspiracy charged by the United States, upon its being found at the trial in the federal court, that such conspiracy in violation of the federal statute had been aggravated by the commission of an offense against the state -- "an aggravation merely of the substantive offense of conspiracy," not a distinct, separate offense against the United States, to be punished by it without reference to the conspiracy charged in the indictment.
212 U. S. 57
107 F. 753. Where the commission of a federal offense is accompanied by an offense committed against the laws of the state,
it is no doubt competent to so measure the punishment for the federal offense as to make it equal to the punishment prescribed by the state for the crime committed against the state in the act of violating the federal law. But is § 5509 so worded as to require the federal court,
the defendants have been lawfully tried and acquitted as to the identical crime of murder mentioned in the indictment in that court, to enter upon a judicial investigation to ascertain whether the defendants committed the alleged crime against the state of the murder mentioned in that indictment? We think not. The murder in question, if committed at all, was, as a distinct offense, a crime only against the state, and after the defendants were acquitted of that crime by the only tribunal that had jurisdiction of it
as an offense against the state,
it is to be taken that no such crime of murder as charged in the indictment was in fact committed by them. If this be not so, it follows that, notwithstanding the lawful acquittal of the defendants by the only tribunal that could lawfully try them for the alleged offense against the state, the United States may, in this case, in the district court of the United States, punish them
for the conspiracy charged,
precisely as the state court could have punished them for murder if the defendants had been previously found guilty of that crime in the state court. We do not think that § 5509 is necessarily to be so construed. Nor do we think that Congress intended any such result to occur. Such a result should be avoided if it be possible to do so. We hold that it can be avoided without doing violence to the words of the statute. The language of that section is entirely satisfied and the ends of justice met if the statute is construed as not embracing, nor intended to embrace, any felony or misdemeanor against the State of which,
prior to the trial in the federal court of the federal offense charged,