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197 Ky. 320

Little v. Commonwealth

Court of Appeals of Kentucky

Decided January 19, 1923

Court of Appeals of Kentucky · decided 1923-01-19

Relies on Shirley v. Commonwealth · Fugate v. Commonwealth · Hall v. Commonwealth

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1923-01-19

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently June 1965

1 federal appellate · 7 state decisions

4019231930194019501960decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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¶1*321Opinion op the Court by

Judge Moorman

¶2Affirming.

¶3Tom Little and Bill Little were convicted in the Johnson circuit court of the offense of operating an illicit or moonshine still in violation of section 2554d-l, Carroll’s Kentucky Statutes, 1922. They were each fined $200.00 and given a jail sentence of thirty days. It is contended on this appeal that the judgment is invalid because of a former conviction of Tom Little in the United States district court and a former acquittal of Bill Little in that court on the same facts upon which this judgment is based.

¶4There are two reasons why this contention cannot prevail. The first is, that appellants did not enter a plea of former conviction or former acquittal. And we have held in Shirley v. Commonwealth, 143 Ky. 183, and Fugate v. Commonwealth, 171 Ky. 227, that the defense of former jeopardy is not available unless the defendant enters a plea of former conviction or acquittal as required by section 164 of the Criminal Code. ■ No such plea was filed by either of the defendants. This is a sufficient reason for' denying the contention.

¶5The other reason is that one act may constitute an offense against both the state and the federal governments, and accordingly a conviction in a federal court for an offense against the Volstead act does not operate as a bar to a prosecution in the state courts on the same state of facts. This was decided in Hall v. Commonwealth, 197 Ky. 179, on the authority of United States v. Vito Lanza, U. S. Advance Opinions, 1922-23, page —, and the authorities therein cited.

¶6The judgment is affirmed.

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