Record
Court opinion
1922-12-11
CourtListener (Free Law Project), reprinting the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States
United States v. Lanza, 260 U.S. 377 (1922)
The Supreme Court holds, 11 December 1922, in an opinion by Chief Justice Taft, that the same act violating prohibition laws can be punished by both a state and the United States, so a state prosecution does not bar a federal one.
- Date
- 1922-12-11
- Kind
- court-opinion
- Source
- CourtListener (Free Law Project), reprinting the opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-11
- Docket
- 260 U.S. 377 (1922), No. 39
- Rights
- Opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States. Judicial opinions of the Court are not subject to copyright (17 U.S.C. § 105; Wheaton v. Peters). The text read here is CourtListener's scan-derived copy of the reported opinion.
Decided December 11, 1922; No. 39. The Court held that the same act violating prohibition laws can be punished by both a state and the United States, because each sovereign defines offenses against its own peace, so a state prosecution does not bar a federal one under the Fifth Amendment. It reversed the Western District of Washington’s dismissal of five counts of a federal indictment under the National Prohibition Act. Chief Justice Taft wrote the opinion. The defendants had pleaded a prior state information for the same liquor.
The Court wrote: “Each government in determining what shall be an offense against its peace and dignity is exercising its own sovereignty, not that of the other.” The opinion relies on the second section of the Eighteenth Amendment, which gives Congress and the states concurrent power to enforce it. Quotations follow CourtListener’s scan-derived text.