United States v. Grainger (346 U.S. 235)
U.S. Supreme Court · decided June 15, 1953 · Supreme Court Database (Spaeth)
- Citation
- 346 U.S. 235 · 73 S. Ct. 1069
- Docket
- No. 634
- Argued
- May 4, 1953
- Decided
- June 15, 1953
- Term
- October Term 1952
- Vote
- 5–3
- Majority author
- Justice Burton
- Issue area
- Criminal Procedure
- Disposition
- Reversed and remanded
- Outcome
- Petitioning party won
- Ideological direction
- Conservative
How the Justices voted
- Majority
- Chief Justice Vinson, Justice Minton, Justice Clark, Justice Burton (wrote), Justice Reed
- Dissenting
- Justice Douglas (wrote), Justice Frankfurter (wrote), Justice Black (wrote)
Opinion excerpt
Mr. Justice Burton delivered the opinion of the Court. These cases were argued immediately following No. 548, Bridges v. United States, ante, p. 209. They concern the Wartime Suspension of Limitations Act which we found inapplicable to the offenses stated in the Bridges indictment. These cases, however, involve different offenses and we hold the Suspension Act applicable to the instant indictments for offenses committed in 1945 and 1946 and we hold that the United States may thus prosecute them in 1952. The principal questions here are: (1) whether the Wartime Suspension of Limitations Act suspended the running of the general three-year statute of limitations as to violations of the false claims clause of the False Claims Act, and (2) if so, whether the indictments for such offenses, found in 1952, were timely. For the reasons hereafter stated, our answer to each question is in the affirmative. These indictments were filed in 1952 in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. The indictment in No. 634 charges appellee Grainger, in 16 counts, with having “unlawfully, knowingly, wilfully and fraudulently” presented for payment to the Commodity Credit Corporation, at various times in 1945, claims upon that corporation certifying that appel-lee had made certain purchases of wool at certain prices, knowing such claims “to be false, fictitious and…
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