Cases on Criminal Law; Selected from Decisions of English and American Courts (Paperback)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CASES ON CRIMINAL LAW. CHAPTER I. SOURCES OF THE CRIMINAL LAW. SECTION 1.?CRIMINAL LAW OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. UNITED STATES v. WORRALL. (Circuit Court of United States, Pennsylvania District, 1798. 2 Dall. 384, Fed. Cas. No. 16,766, 1 L. Ed. 426.) The defendant was charged with an attempt to bribe Tench Coxe, the Commissioner of the Revenue, the indictment containing two counts. Verdict?Guilty on both counts of the indictment.1 Dallas, who had declined speaking on the facts before the jury, now moved in arrest of judgment. Rawle, District Attorney, contra. Chase, Justice. Do you mean, Mr. Attorney, to support this indictment solely atcpmmon law? If you do, I have no difficulty upon the subject. The indictment cannot be maintained in this court. Rawle, answering in the affirmative, Chase, Justice, stopped Mr. Levy, who was about to reply, in support of the motion in arrest of judgment, and delivered an opinion to the following effect: Chase, Justice. This is an indictment for an offense highly injurious to morals, and deserving the severest punishment; but, as it is an indictment at common law, I dismiss, at once, everything that has been said about the Constitution and laws of the United States. In this country, every man sustains a two-fold political capacity; one in relation to the state, and another in relation to the United States. In relation to the state, he is subject to various municipal regulations, founded upon the state Constitution and policy, which do not affoct him in his relation to the United States; for the Constitution of the Union is the source of all the jurisdiction of the national government, so that the departments of the government can never assume any power that is not expressly granted by that instru- i Pert of th...