Source: http://legaliq.com/Case/Blockburger_V_United_States
Timestamp: 2017-12-17 10:12:36
Document Index: 55673406

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 1', '§ 1006', '§ 692', '§ 2', '§ 696', '§ 189', '§ 312', '§ 2', '§ 1']

Blockburger v. United States (284 U.S. 299, 52 S. Ct. 180, 76 L. Ed. 306)
Case Name: Blockburger v. United States
Filed: December 11, 1931
Citations: 284 U.S. 299, 52 S. Ct. 180, 76 L. Ed. 306, 1932 U.S. LEXIS 875
Docket #: 374
Argued November 24, 1931. Decided January 4, 1932. CERTIORARI TO THE CIRCUIT COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SEVENTH CIRCUIT.
*300 Mr. Harold J. Bandy was on the brief for petitioner.
Mr. Claude R. Branch, with whom Solicitor General Thatcher, Assistant Attorney General Dodds, and Mr. Harry S. Ridgely were on the brief, for the United States.
The petitioner was charged with violating provisions of the Harrison Narcotic Act: c. 1, § 1, 38 Stat. 785, as amended by c. 18, § 1006, 40 Stat. 1057, 1131, (U.S.C., Title 26, § 692);[1] and c. 1, § 2, 38 Stat. 785, 786, as amended, (U.S.C., Title 26, § 696).[2] The indictment *301 contained five counts. The jury returned a verdict against petitioner upon the second, third and fifth counts only. Each of these counts charged a sale of morphine hydrochloride to the same purchaser. The second count charged a sale on a specified day of ten grains of the drug not in or from the original stamped package; the third count charged a sale on the following day of eight grains of the drug not in or from the original stamped package; the fifth count charged the latter sale also as having been made not in pursuance of a written order of the purchaser as required by the statute. The court sentenced petitioner to five years imprisonment and a fine of $2,000 upon each count, the terms of imprisonment to run consecutively; and this judgment was affirmed on appeal. 50 F. (2d) 795.
The contention on behalf of petitioner is that these two sales, having been made to the same purchaser and *302 following each other with no substantial interval of time between the delivery of the drug in the first transaction and the payment for the second quantity sold, constitute a single continuing offense. The contention is unsound. The distinction between the transactions here involved and an offense continuous in its character, is well settled, as was pointed out by this court in the case of In re Snow, 120 U.S. 274. There it was held that the offense of cohabiting with more than one woman, created by the Act of March 22, 1882, c. 47, 22 Stat. 31, was a continuous offense, and was committed, in the sense of the statute, where there was a living or dwelling together as husband and wife. The court said (pp. 281, 286):
*303 In the present case, the first transaction, resulting in a sale, had come to an end. The next sale was not the result of the original impulse, but of a fresh one  that is to say, of a new bargain. The question is controlled, not by the Snow case, but by such cases as that of Ebeling v. Morgan, 237 U.S. 625. There the accused was convicted under several counts of a willful tearing, etc., of mail bags, with intent to rob. The court (p. 628) stated the question to be, "whether one who, in the same transaction, tears or cuts successively mail bags of the United States used in conveyance of the mails, with intent to rob or steal any such mail, is guilty of a single offense or of additional offenses because of each successive cutting with the criminal intent charged." Answering this question, the court, after quoting the statute, § 189, Criminal Code (U.S.C., Title 18, § 312), said (p. 629):
Two. Section 1 of the Narcotic Act creates the offense of selling any of the forbidden drugs except in or from the original stamped package; and § 2 creates the offense of selling any of such drugs not in pursuance of a written *304 order of the person to whom the drug is sold. Thus, upon the face of the statute, two distinct offenses are created. Here there was but one sale, and the question is whether, both sections being violated by the same act, the accused committed two offenses or only one.
The case of Ballerini v. Aderholt, 44 F. (2d) 352, is not in harmony with these views and is disapproved.
Three. It is not necessary to discuss the additional assignments of error in respect of cross-examination, admission of testimony, statements made by the district *305 attorney to the jury, claimed to be prejudicial, and instructions of the court. These matters were properly disposed of by the court below. Nor is there merit in the contention that the language of the penal section of the Narcotic Act, "any person who violates or fails to comply with any of the requirements of this act" shall be punished, etc., is to be construed as imposing a single punishment for a violation of the distinct requirements of §§ 1 and 2 when accomplished by one and the same sale. The plain meaning of the provision is that each offense is subject to the penalty prescribed; and if that be too harsh, the remedy must be afforded by act of Congress, not by judicial legislation under the guise of construction. Under the circumstances, so far as disclosed, it is true that the imposition of the full penalty of fine and imprisonment upon each count seems unduly severe; but there may have been other facts and circumstances before the trial court properly influencing the extent of the punishment. In any event, the matter was one for that court, with whose judgment there is no warrant for interference on our part.
[1] "It shall be unlawful for any person to purchase, sell, dispense, or distribute any of the aforesaid drugs [opium and other narcotics] except in the original stamped package or from the original stamped package; and the absence of appropriate tax-paid stamps from any of the aforesaid drugs shall be prima facie evidence of a violation of this section by the person in whose possession same may be found; . . ."
[2] "It shall be unlawful for any person to sell, barter, exchange, or give away any of the drugs specified in section 691 of this title, except in pursuance of a written order of the person to whom such article is sold, bartered, exchanged, or given, on a form to be issued in blank for that purpose by the Commissioner of Internal Revenue."
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