Peter Smythe, P.C.

Uni­ted Sta­tes v. Seale, No. 07 – 60732 (5th Cir. July 30, 2009)

The Fifth Cir­cuit en banc court took the unu­sual step of cer­tif­ying a ques­tion to the Supreme Court. The Fifth Cir­cuit asks:

What sta­tute of limi­ta­tions applies to a pro­se­cu­tion under 18 U.S.C. § 1201 for a kid­nap­ping offense that occu­rred in 1964 but was not indic­ted until 2007?

The pro­blem for the court is that in 1964 kid­nap­ping was punisha­ble by death which carried an unli­mi­ted sta­tute of limi­ta­tions period. In Uni­ted Sta­tes v. Jack­son, the Supreme Court held that the death penalty for kid­nap­ping was uncons­ti­tu­tio­nal. In the wake of Jack­son, Con­gress repea­led the death penalty por­tion of the kid­nap­ping sta­tute (1972 amend­ment), the­reby giving it a five-​year sta­tute of limi­ta­tions period. Con­gress later on reins­ta­ted the death penalty for kid­nap­ping (who says that the Cons­ti­tu­tion isn’t a living docu­ment?) giving it, once again, an unli­mi­ted limi­ta­tions period.

Seale argued that either Jack­son, the 1972 amend­ment, or both had the effect of chan­ging his limi­ta­tions period from unli­mi­ted to five years. The Fifth Cir­cuit, sit­ting en banc, split 9 – 9 on the issue which had the effect of enfor­cing the unli­mi­ted limi­ta­tions period.

The Fifth Circuit’s cer­ti­fied ques­tion is just the fifth ques­tion to go to the Supreme Court in the past sixty years.

You might also like:

• Rodri­guez: Fair War­ning to Plain­tiffs’ Lawyers
• Mind­Print: Boon to Law­yers Bus­tin’ Out
• Labatt Food Ser­vice: Wrong­ful Death Bene­fi­cia­ries Must Arbitrate
• Fri­day Doc­ket — 6 Aug 2010
• Skilling’s Team Takes Another Crack