1. Two sales of morphine not in or from the original
stamped package, the second having been initiated after the first was complete, held
separate and distinct offenses under § 1 of the Narcotics Act, although buyer and seller
were the same in both cases and but little time elapsed between the end of the one
transaction and the beginning of the other. P. 301.
2. Section 1 of the Narcotics Act, forbidding sale except in or from the original
stamped package, and § 2, forbidding sale not in pursuance of a written order of the
person to whom the drug is sold, create two distinct offenses, and both are committed by a
single sale not in or from the original stamped package and without a written order. P.
303.
3. Where the same act or transaction constitutes a violation of two distinct statutory
provisions, the test to be applied to determine whether there are two offenses or only
one, is whether each provision requires proof of a fact which the other does not. P. 304.
4. The penal section of the Act, "any person who violates or fails to comply with
any of the requirements of this act" shall be punished, etc., means that each offense
is subject to the penalty prescribed. P. 305.
1. In view of the provisions of § 605 of the
Communications Act of 1934, 47 U. S. C. § 605, evidence obtained by federal agents by
tapping telephone wires and intercepting messages is not admissible in a criminal trial in
the federal district court. P. 382.
2. In the provision of § 605 of the Communications Act of 1934, that "no person
not being authorized by the sender shall intercept any communication and divulge or
publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect or meaning of such intercepted
communication to any person; . . ." the phrase "no person" embraces federal
agents engaged in the detection of crime; and to "divulge" an intercepted
communication to "any person" embraces testimony in a court as to the contents
of such a communication. P. 383.
3. Evidence in congressional committee reports indicating that the major purpose of the
Federal Communications Act was the transfer of jurisdiction over wire and radio
communication to the newly constituted Federal Communications Commission, and other
circumstances in the legislative history of the Act, held insufficient to negative the
plain mandate of the provisions of § 605 forbidding wire-tapping. P. 382.
4. Whether wire-tapping as an aid in the detection and punishment of crime should be
permitted to federal agents is a question of policy for the determination of the Congress.
P. 383.
5. The canon that the general words of a statute do not include the Government or
affect its rights, unless that construction be clear and indisputable from the language of
the Act, is inapplicable to this case; but applicable is the principle that the sovereign
is embraced by general words of a statute intended to prevent injury and wrong. Pp.
383-384.
