OCR Text |
Show Bigamy Not a Continuing Offense. Judges, like ordinary mortals, disagree. dis-agree. Some of our Utah justices have held that bigamy was a con tinuiug offense, the statute of limitations limita-tions not applying to it so long as tne parties accused lived together. In Pennsylvania they hold differently as will be Been by tho following notice of a case decided there last month : The supreme ccurt, sitting at Har-rUburg, Har-rUburg, has just rendered a dscision in the caso of Gise vs. The Commonwealth, Common-wealth, in which it holds that bigamy is not a continuing offence, and prosecution lor it can be barred by the statute of limitations. The plaintiff plain-tiff in error, a citizen in Luzerne county, was prosecuted in the common com-mon pleas of that county for bigamy. The first steps in the proceediugs not having been taken until two years alter the contracting of the second marriage On the trial of the case the defence .set up the statute of limitations and alleged that the prosecution pros-ecution was barred because not commenced com-menced within two years of the commission com-mission of the offense. The court held, however, that tho Blatute did not apply to bigamy, inasmuch as ihat otlence was a continuous one, and under its instructions the defendant defend-ant then, ana plaintifl now, was convicted con-victed and sentenced to prison. His case was taken to the supreme court by a writ of error, and then the court, in an opinion by Paxson, justice, reverses re-verses the decision of the lower c.iurt, and decides that bigamy is not a con ' tinuing offense, but one which is complete the moment the second marriage is contracted. Hence it holds that the statute of limitations does apply to the crime in question, ques-tion, and orders that the plaintifl in error be discharged from priBOU, he having been illegally convicted in the lower tribunal, |