Shoener v. Pennsylvania
Shoener v. Pennsylvania
Opinion of the Court
after making the foregoing statement, delivered the opinion of the court.
The contention that, by the judgment of the Supreme;Court of Pennsylvania, the plaintiff in error has been deprived of a
Assuming, then, that no valid judgment could have been rendered against the accused.upon the first indictment for dig* regarding the demand upon which that indictment, was based, it necessarily follows, as held by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, that that' prosecution did not put the accused in jeopardy in respect of the particular offense specified in the last indictment. That offense was never committed until the demand of June 30, 1905 was disregarded. The defense of double jeopardy could not be sustained unless we should hold that the charge against Shoenér in the first indictment could be sustained under the statute. But we cannot so-.adjudge without disregarding altogether the decision of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania and without holding that an accused .is put in peril by a. prosecution which could not legally result in a conviction for crime. It is an established rule that one is hot put in jeopardy if the indictment under which'he is tried is so radically defective that it would not support a judgment of conviction)' and that a judgment thereon would be arrested, on motion. So where the defense is that the accused was put
. As it was thus correctly decided that the accused was -not, by the present indictment, put in jeopardy for the second time for the same offense, we need not go further or consider any question of a Federal nature, and the writ of error must be .dismissed.
It is so ordered.
Reference
- Full Case Name
- SHOENER v. COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA
- Cited By
- 9 cases
- Status
- Published
- Syllabus
- One is not put in jeopardy if the indictment under which he is tried is so radically defective' that it would not support a judgment of conviction, and a judgment thereon would be arrested on motion. Where the defense is that the accused 4s put in jeopardy for the same offense by his trial under a-former indictment, if it appears from the record of that trial that the accused had not then or previously committed, and could not possibly have committed, any such crime as the one charged, and therefore that the court was without jurisdiction to have rendered any valid judgment against him—the accused is not, by such trial, put in second jeopardy for the offense specified in the last or new indictment; Where a conviction for embezzlement has been reversed on the ground that the money had not and could not be rightfully demanded when the indictment was found the accused is not put in second jeopardy by the trial on another indictment for embezzlement after demand rightfully made.