359 U.S. 187 (1959)
During a strike against the Southern Bell Telephone and Telegraph Company, the petitioners and one McLeod were solicited in Chicago, Illinois, by a union official, Shelby, to dynamite facilities of the telephone company located in the States of Mississippi, Tennessee, and Louisiana.1 The four men met in Chicago where Shelby gave the petitioners and McLeod the plans of the facilities to be dynamited and instructed them as to the method to be used.2 After Shelby left Chicago the petitioners told McLeod that they would not go through with the plan.3 McLeod, however, obtained dynamite and went to Mississippi to destroy telephone company facilities located there.4 The petitioners thereupon disclosed the plot to the telephone company and the Chicago police.5
The petitioners, with Shelby and McLeod, were subsequently indicted by the State of Illinois for violating an Illinois statute making it a crime to conspire to injure or destroy the property of another.6 The indictment describes the property as “communication facilities belonging to the Southern Bell Telephone & Telegraph Company” and “belonging to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.”7 The petitioners entered pleas of guilty to the indictment and were each sentenced to three months’ imprisonment.8
Thereafter indictments were returned in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi against the petitioners and Shelby, and also against one Perry who pointed out to McLeod the property to be dynamited.9 This indictment does not refer to the facilities as belonging to the telephone companies, but charges the offense of violating 18 U.S.C. § 371 by conspiring to destroy, contrary to 18 U.S.C. § 1362.10 The indictment charged conspiracy to destroy works, property and material known as coaxial repeater stations and micro-wave towers.11 These facilities were located in the States of Mississippi, Tennessee and Louisiana.12 They were essential and integral parts of systems and means of communication operated and controlled by the United States.13 McLeod confessed to his part in the conspiracy and testified on the federal trial to petitioners’ acts of participation in the conspiracy.14 The Government also introduced proof that the Strategic Air Command, the Civil Aeronautics Administration, the Navy and other federal agencies have the exclusive use of some of the circuits within the coaxial cables carried by the repeater stations and micro-wave towers that were to be destroyed.15 The federal jury found the four defendants guilty as charged.16
On appeal the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed the convictions of Shelby and Perry for error in the admission of evidence, but affirmed the convictions of the petitioners.17 The Supreme Court granted certiorari limited to consideration of the claim that the federal prosecutions, based on the same acts as were the prior state convictions, placed petitioners twice in jeopardy contrary to the Fifth Amendment.18
Whether a federal prosecution of defendants already prosecuted for the same acts by a State subjects those defendants to double jeopardy under the Fifth Amendment?19
The Double Jeopardy Clause of the Fifth Amendment does not prohibit a federal prosecution following a state conviction for the same acts. The state and federal governments are separate sovereigns deriving power from different sources. Each is capable of punishing an act that violates both laws.20
No. The petitioners' Illinois convictions for conspiracy to injure the property of the telephone companies were based on the same acts as the federal convictions for conspiring to destroy facilities operated and controlled by the United States. Because Illinois and the United States are distinct sovereigns, the federal prosecution did not place the petitioners twice in jeopardy for the same offense under the Fifth Amendment.21
The conclusion is therefore compelled that the prior Illinois conviction of the petitioners did not bar the instant federal prosecution.22
Related opinions on this issue
Joined by The Chief Justice And Mr. Justice Douglas
Justice Black, joined by the Chief Justice and Justice Douglas, dissented.23 He argued that the legal logic of dual sovereignty used to prove one act to be two offenses is too subtle.24 Punishing a person twice for the same offense, once by a State and once by the United States, is an affront to human dignity and dangerous to human freedom.25
Most free countries have accepted a prior conviction elsewhere as a bar to a second trial in their jurisdiction.26 He would reverse both convictions.27