Summers v. United States

Background

A man was indicted under a federal bank law (§ 5209 of the Revised Statutes) and charged with fifty-six separate violations. He argued the indictment violated Alaska’s criminal-code rule that an indictment must charge only one crime. After his demurrer was overruled, he refused to plead, elected to stand on the demurrer under a territorial provision, and was adjudged guilty and sentenced to five years on each count, to run concurrently. The court of appeals affirmed that judgment.

Reasoning

The central question was whether the Alaska criminal code’s procedure or a federal rule allowing multiple counts controlled prosecutions in the Territory. The Court examined the Alaska Code, earlier acts adopting Oregon law for Alaska, and the relevant federal statutes. It concluded the Alaska Code is a complete procedural scheme covering indictments and trials and that its rule—that an indictment must charge only one crime—applies to the case. The Court declined to give a later territorial amendment retrospective effect to validate the earlier indictment. Because the indictment was defective under the territorial rule, the Court reversed and directed the district court to sustain the demurrer. The Court explicitly did not decide the separate constitutional question about whether the defendant could waive a jury trial.

Real world impact

The ruling means that in Alaska prosecutions of many ordinary crimes the territorial single-crime charging rule governs procedure, so prosecutors cannot rely on the federal multi-count rule to sustain such indictments filed before the territorial amendment. Defendants in the Territory may challenge multi-count indictments under the prevailing local code, and this decision is a procedural correction rather than a ruling on jury-waiver rights.