THE IRRESISTIBLE. DANIELS, CLAIMANT
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The Supreme Court affirmed the Circuit Court's dismissal of a forfeiture action against the brig La Irresistible for violating neutrality laws, holding that an offense committed under a temporary act could not be prosecuted after that act's expiration unless Congress specifically preserved the power to prosecute through an explicit statutory provision. The Court construed a repealing statute's savings clause as merely preserving existing prosecutorial authority rather than creating new authority to prosecute violations after the underlying temporary act had expired by its own terms.
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Mr. Chief Justice Marshall delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an appeal from a sentence of the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Maryland, dismissing an information filed in that Court against the brig La Irresistible, as forfeited under the acts of Congress, made for the preservation of the neutrality of the United States. The offence charged in the information, was committed under the act of 1817, and the only question is, .whether the-informaron can be sustained after the time when that act wo.jr-d have expired by its own limitation.
The act was to continue in force two years after the 3d of March, 1817.
On the 20th of April, 1818, Congress passed an act making farther provision ofn the same subject, which repealed all former acts on,that subject, and among these the act of 1817, and annexed to the repealing clause the following proviso, “Provided, nevertheless, that persons having offended against any of the acts aforesaid may be prosecuted, convicted, and punished, as if the same were not repealed, and no forfeiture heretofore incurred by a violation.of any of the acts aforesaid shall be affected by such repeal.”
The obvious construction of this clause is, that the’ power to prosecute, convict, and-punish offenders against either of the repealed acts, remains as if the repealing act had never been passed. It does not create a power to punish, but preserves that which before existed. Now, it is well settled, that an of-fence against a temporary act cannot be punished after the expiration of the act, unless a particular provision be made by law for the purpose.
Sentence affirmed.
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United States v. United States Coin & Currency, 401 U.S. 715 (U.S. 1971)…); see also 1 Sutherland, Statutory Construction § 2046 (1943 ed.). The courts nevertheless honored provisions in repealing statutes saving prosecutions and forfeitures for conduct committed while the former statute was in effect. The Irresistible, 7 Wheat. 551 (1822); 1 Sutherland, supra, § 2050. Moreover, in 1871, Congress enacted the following general statute which, among other things, saved ongoing criminal prosecutions from abatement following repeal of a penal statute: “[T]he repeal of any statute s…
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Norris v. Crocker, 13 How. 429 (U.S. 1851)
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United States v. Powers, 307 U.S. 214 (U.S. 1939)…[*218] after June 16, 1937, as before, violations committed prior to that date are not punishable thereafter. In view of this conclusion, we do not reach the nub of appellees’ argument based on Chief Justice Marshall’s statement in The Irresistible, 7 Wheat. 551, 552 “that an offense against a temporary act cannot be punished after the expiration o'f the act, unless a particular provision be made by-law for the purpose.” For in this case, as' we have said, the Act of February 22, 1935, did not expire on Jun…
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