Edward Douglass White

“ It is true it is argued that as the rights which the United States asserted were not possessed, the judgment did not bar the United States or the district attorney or the grand jury from the exercise of any lawful power. ”

“ The Comptroller of the Currency, in January, 1915, closed the doors of the First National Bank of Uniontown, Pennsylvania. At the opening of the November term, 1915, of the court below, sitting at Pittsburgh, the attention of the grand jury was called by the court to alleged criminal acts connected with the administration of the affairs of the bank, and, following an investigation, the district attorney submitted to the grand jury a proposed indictment charging Thompson, the president of the bank, in 47 counts with violations of the National Bank Act. ”

“ To do more than to make this reference is unnecessary as in argument the abstract correctness of the propositions advanced by the government is conceded and the only controversy is as to their application, based upon the insistence that the present case is governed by an exception which exacts the necessity of procuring the prior approval of the court wherever a district attorney presents to one grand jury charges which a previous grand jury has ignored. ”

“ In the third place, because, while the general rule which is stated establishes the authority of the district attorney as official prosecutor, and makes it, as we have seen, coterminous with the right of the grand jury to consider, the exception subjects that authority to the exercise of a judicial discretion, which, as well illustrated by the case under consideration, destroys it. ”