United States v. Lanza
The Court ruled that being punished by a state court for making and selling liquor did not stop the federal government from also prosecuting the same people under the National Prohibition Act for the same acts.
Because state and federal governments are separate sovereigns, the Court held that one act can be two distinct crimes, and punishing it twice does not violate the Fifth Amendment's ban on double jeopardy.
How it got here: The federal trial court dismissed the indictment, ruling the earlier state conviction barred federal prosecution; the government asked the Supreme Court to review that dismissal.
The Case in Depth
What happened
Several people were convicted in a Washington state court and fined for manufacturing, transporting, and possessing intoxicating liquor under a pre-existing state law. Soon after, a federal grand jury indicted the same people for the same conduct under the newly enacted National Prohibition Act, which Congress passed to enforce the Eighteenth Amendment's nationwide ban on alcohol.
The question before the Court
Could the federal government prosecute people under national Prohibition law for the same liquor-making acts a state court had already punished them for?
Why it matters
The ruling meant Prohibition-era defendants could face both state and federal punishment for the same liquor offense, and it established a lasting rule — still used today — that state and federal prosecutions for the same conduct are not double jeopardy because each government enforces its own separate law.
What changes now
The case goes back to the district court, which must overrule the defendants' plea barring prosecution and proceed with the federal case on the five liquor-related counts. The ruling establishes a rule other courts would follow: absent a specific act of Congress saying otherwise, a state conviction for liquor offenses does not prevent a later federal prosecution for the same conduct.
What this does not decide
The Court noted that Congress remains free to pass a law barring federal prosecution whenever a state has already punished the same conduct; the ruling only holds that, without such a law, dual prosecution is constitutionally permitted, not that it is required or always wise.
How the Court got there
The legal reasoning, step by step
- The Court read the Eighteenth Amendment's two sections separately: the first section itself bans alcohol nationwide and binds every government, while the second section merely lets both Congress and the states pass their own laws to enforce that ban — it does not merge their power into one.
- Because state prohibition laws draw their force from each state's own original police power (preserved by the Tenth Amendment), not from the Eighteenth Amendment itself, a state and the federal government are acting as two separate sovereigns when each punishes liquor offenses.
- The Court applied the settled dual-sovereignty principle — that when the same act violates the laws of two independent governments, it creates two distinct offenses, each of which may be punished separately without double jeopardy.
- The Court explained that the Fifth Amendment's double jeopardy protection applies only to a second prosecution by the same government (the federal government) for the same offense, not to separate prosecutions by two different governments.
- Applying this to the facts, the Court concluded that the Washington conviction punished an offense against the state's own law, while the federal indictment charged a separate offense against the United States, so the state conviction did not bar the federal case.
Doctrinal impact
Cases affected by this decision
Reaffirms Fox v. Ohio (5 How. 410)
Relied on as long-standing authority that the same act can be punished by both a state and the federal government.
Reaffirms United States v. Marigold (9 How. 560)
Cited as confirming that one act can be an offense against both state and federal governments.
Reaffirms Southern Ry. Co. v. Railroad Commission of Indiana (236 U.S. 439)
Used to explain when two sovereigns share jurisdiction over the same conduct.
Distinguishes Ponzi v. Fessenden (258 U.S. 254)
Held not to apply because that case involved competing custody of a prisoner, not overlapping punishment authority.