Court Opinion

ID: 9457776
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-04 20:32:44.990056+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:35:30.317618
License: Public Domain

PELL, Circuit Judge
(dissenting).
I also join in the dissent. For the reasons ably expressed by Judge Stevens, I cannot agree that jeopardy has attached.
With regard to the principal issue which was before us, the construction of the fifth and sixth paragraphs of 18 U.S.C. § 3731, we are all familiar with the abolitionary steps taken in our American procedural jurisprudence, both at the state and federal levels, directed at the ancient writs and formalistic procedures of our common law. The burial of these anachronistic devices, now almost a fait accompli, which may have had some passing pecuniary benefits to the skillful advocate but probably very little long range worth to the litigant who desired to have his case heard expeditiously and on the merits, is generally believed to be a desirable result. The result reached by the Apex court and by the majority of this court seems to me to be an unfortunate retrogressive step.
At the risk of oversimplifying the principal issue before us, one on which my brothers have discoursed learnedly and lengthily, I would stand on the basis that when Congress said that an “appeal may be taken by and on behalf of the United States from the district courts to a court of appeals in all criminal cases . [including] from a decision or judgment setting aside or dismissing any indictment . . . ,” it meant what it plainly said.
*677To chart a course on the uncertain sea of legislative history seems to me to be risking the ordinarily attendant possibility of foundering on the shoals of obfuscation.