{{Use American English|date=September 2025}} {{Use mdy dates|date=August 2025}} {{Infobox SCOTUS case |Litigants=Fox v. Ohio |ArgueDate= |ArgueYear= |DecideDate=February 22 |DecideYear=1847 |FullName= |USVol=46 |USPage=410 |Docket= |ParallelCitations= |Prior= |Subsequent= |Holding=States may criminalize the spending of counterfeit money. |Majority=Daniel |JoinMajority= |Dissent=McLean |LawsApplied= }} __NOTOC__ '''''Fox v. Ohio''''', {{ussc|volume=46|page=410|year=1847|el=no}}, was a United States Supreme Court case in which the court held that states may criminalize the spending of counterfeit money. By implication, this case was an early expression of the doctrine that the state and federal governments may punish the same acts as separate sovereigns without violating the Double Jeopardy Clause, but the specific crimes each sovereign charged in this case were slightly different.<ref name="case">{{ussc|name=Fox v. Ohio|volume=46|page=410|year=1847}}.</ref>
==Background== <!-- Facts of the dispute, its history in lower courts, and relevant historical/political context. --> Ohio indicted Malinda Fox for the crime of "passing and uttering a certain piece of false, base, and counterfeit coin, forged and counterfeited to the likeness and similitude of the good and legal silver coin currently passing in the State of Ohio, called a dollar." Fox was convicted. In 1842, the Ohio Supreme Court affirmed the conviction on appeal.<ref name="case"/>
Fox appealed the case to the Supreme Court, claiming that the judgment needed to be reversed because states had no jurisdiction over the offense of counterfeiting. Article 1, Section 8 of the federal Constitution gives to Congress the power "To coin money, regulate the value thereof, and of foreign coin, and fix the standard of weights and measures " and "To provide for the punishment of counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States." Fox claimed that this reserved the regulation of counterfeiting to the exclusive jurisdiction of the federal government.<ref name="case"/>
==Opinion of the court== <!-- Oral arguments can go at the beginning of this section. It should contain a summary of the court's opinion as well as any important events of note that occurred during the case. Use this section for excerpts from the decision and precedents cited. Subsections or a paragraph for concurring and dissenting opinions can also be added as appropriate. Should be in the form of "Concurrences" and "Dissents" for section headers. --> {{Primary sources|Section|date=August 2025}} {{Expand section|date=August 2025}} The Supreme Court issued an opinion on February 22, 1847. In an opinion written by Justice Peter V. Daniel, the court held that the stipulations in Article I, Section 8 did not prevent a state from passing a law to punish the offense of ''circulating'' counterfeit coin of the United States.<ref name="case"/>
Because the case predated the Fourteenth Amendment, the Fifth Amendment's Double Jeopardy Clause was not incorporated against the states. Therefore, double jeopardy was considered an inherent concern of the federal government, but not an inherent concern of the states.<ref>Lawrence J. Lipka, Criminal Law - Double Jeopardy - Benton v. Maryland, 89 S. Ct. 2056 (1969), 11 Wm. & Mary L. Rev. 564 (1969), https://scholarship.law.wm.edu/wmlr/vol11/iss2/15</ref>
Justice John McLean dissented, saying it was well-established by previous cases that the states could not charge people with violations of federal law. He said:
{{Blockquote|The point is not whether a state may not punish an offense under an act of Congress, but whether the state may inflict, by virtue of its own sovereignty, punishment for the same act as an offense against the state which the federal government may constitutionally punish.<br/>If this be so, it is a great defect in our system. For the punishment under the state law would be no bar to a prosecution under the law of Congress. And to punish the same act by the two governments would violate not only the common principles of humanity, but would be repugnant to the nature of both governments. If there were a concurrent power in both governments to punish the same act, a conviction under the laws of either could be pleaded in bar to a prosecution by the other.<ref name="case"/>}}
McLean also noted that, although he was a lone dissenter now, Justice Joseph Story had agreed with him after the initial arguing of the case before the court. Seeking a majority, the court ordered the case to be reargued. In the intervening years, Story had died.<ref name="case"/>
==Subsequent developments== <!-- (if applicable) Cases that clarify/reverse; relevant developments for the parties or dispute (outcome of remand/"Nixon turned over his tapes..."), social effects. --> The Supreme Court squarely upheld the separate sovereigns doctrine as an exception to the Double Jeopardy Clause for the first time in ''United States v. Lanza'' (1922).<ref>https://harvardlawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/312-321_Online.pdf {{Bare URL PDF|date=November 2025}}</ref>
== References == {{reflist}}
==External links== {{Wikisource}} * {{caselaw source | case = {{ussc|name=Fox v. Ohio|volume=46|page=410|year=1847|el=no}} | justia = https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/46/410/case.html | cornell = https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/46/410 | findlaw = https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/46/410.html }}
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Category:United States Supreme Court cases in 1847 Category:United States Supreme Court cases Category:United States Supreme Court cases of the Taney Court Category:United States Double Jeopardy Clause case law Category:Counterfeit money Category:United States Constitution Article One case law