What is the name of your state? NY but it doesn't matter at all
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/382/399/
Can someone summarize this case please? URGENT!
As has been repeatedly explained: the summation is distinctly and adequately expressed in the syllabus! In substance the GIACCIO case decreed:
That a Pennsylvania statute that allows a jury (in spite of an acquittal) to assess court costs against a defendant - and impose incarceration if not paid - where it finds the defendant's overall conduct as
"improper, outrageous of morality and justice" DOES NOT measure up to the established standards of DUE PROCESS OF LAW and is thus unconstitutional. *
What seems remarkable is the fact that for a century prior to GIACCIO (1860 to 1966) the Pennsylvania courts appear to have consistently enforced such a patently
UN constitutional law!
Noting the state's argument that the Pennsylvania judiciary possessed independent authority to establish and affix - AND has heretofore established and affixed
"standards and guides that cured the (legislative) deficiencies." All of course as properly rejected by the high federal court as an improper foray into and an assertion of strictly a legislative function.
________________
[*] "Ignorance of the law" is of course no excuse. But equally inexcusable are ignorant laws.
"The jury has found you innocent of all charges. Nevertheless, it can still deprive you of property and liberty if it deems that your conduct is repugnant to it's particular sense of justice and morality."
