United States v. Cruikshank
United States Supreme Court
92 U.S. 542 (1876)
Relevant factsFree
Under an 1870 federal statute, the government prosecuted William Cruikshank and others (defendants) for conspiring to murder two Black victims and thereby deny them their constitutional and statutory rights; the defendants moved for arrest of judgment, challenging the legal sufficiency of the indictments, and the circuit court, split on the question, certified it to the Supreme Court.
IssueFree
Whether a criminal indictment must positively and specifically allege the particular ways the defendant violated the charged law, rather than simply reciting the statute's general terms.