# Kepner v. United States

> Supreme Court of the United States · May 31, 1904 · 195 U.S. 100

URL: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9417955

## Case

- **Full name:** Kepner v. United States
- **Court:** Supreme Court of the United States
- **Decided:** May 31, 1904
- **Citations:** 195 U.S. 100; 24 S. Ct. 797; 49 L. Ed. 114; 1904 U.S. LEXIS 820
- **Precedential status:** Published
- **Opinion:** Dissent by Brown
- **Judges:** Day, Brown, White, McKenna
- **Cited by:** 469 later opinions in the Frix Law Library

## Citator (automated)

- No negative treatment found by the automated citator. That is not the same as a confirmation that the case is good law; read the citing cases.
- Full citator and citing cases: https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9417955

## How later opinions describe it (automated extraction)

- holding that double jeopardy clause of fifth amendment barred retrial of defendant after he had been acquitted and noting that vast majority of states adhered to that rule
- holding that the Double Jeopardy Clause prevents appeals from an acquittal
- explaining the Ball principle on the basis that "[t]he jeopardy is one continuing jeopardy from its beginning to the end of cause"

## Opinion text

Mr. Justice Brown
dissenting.
Under our Anglo-Sa,xon system of jurisprudence I have always supposed that a verdict of acquittal upon a valid indictment terminated the jeopardy, that no further proceedings for a review could be taken either in the same or in an appellate court, and that it was extremely doubtful whether even Congress could constitutionally authorize such review.
Conceding all this, however, I-think that in applying the principle to the'Philippine Islands, Congress intended to use the words in the sense in which- they had theretofore been understood in those Islands. By that law, in which trial by jury was unknown, the jeopardy did not terminate, if appeal were taken to the audiencia or Supreme Court, until that body had acted upon the case. The proceedings before the court of first instance were in "all important cases reviewable by the Supreme Court upon appeal, which acted finally upon the case and terminated the jeopardy. This was evidently the view of the military commander in General Order, No..58, and of the Philippine Commission- in the act of August 10, 1901, (No. 194,) in both of which an appeal to the Supreme Court was contemplated, even after a judgment of acquittal. I think this also must have been the intention of Congress, particularly in view of sec. 9 of the Philippine act of July 1, 1902, which provided that “the Supreme Court and the courts of first instance of the Philippine Islands shall possess and exercise jurisdiction as heretofore provided . . . subject to the power of said government to change the practice and method of procedure.” It seems to me impossible to suppose that Congress intended to place in the hands of a single judge the great and dangerous power of finally acquitting- the most notorious criminals.

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Source: Frix Law Library, https://www.frixlaw.com/law-library/cases/9417955. Public record. Not legal advice.