## Facts

- Multiple defendants were indicted in Schuylkill County for conspiring to corrupt a public election connected to the election of a district attorney.
- The indictments alleged a combination to interfere with the purity and fairness of the election by falsifying the vote.
- Alleged overt acts included making false entries in voter records, depositing fraudulent ballots, and fraudulently counting ballots.
- Some alleged acts resembled conduct addressed by Pennsylvania’s election statute (Act of July 2, 1839), but defendants were not necessarily election officers covered by that statute.
- The alleged election misconduct occurred on November 5, 1877; indictments were returned on November 3, 1879.
- The trial court quashed the indictments, accepting arguments that (a) prosecution was time-barred under a one-year election-law limitations period and (b) appointment of a special district attorney under an 1866 statute was invalid after the 1874 Pennsylvania Constitution.

## Issues

1. Whether offenses against the purity and fairness of public elections are indictable as common-law crimes when not expressly defined by statute.
2. Whether an indictment for common-law conspiracy may be maintained where the overt acts involve conduct addressed by election statutes that do not expressly create a conspiracy offense.
3. Whether the applicable statute of limitations is the two-year general limitation for crimes not otherwise limited, rather than the one-year limitation for certain statutory election offenses.
4. Whether a statute authorizing court appointment of a special district attorney remained valid after the 1874 Pennsylvania Constitution made the district attorney a constitutional officer.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania reversed the orders quashing the indictments and awarded a procedendo for further proceedings.
- The Court held that offenses against the purity and fairness of public elections are crimes at common law and indictable as such.
- The Court treated the indictments as charging a common-law conspiracy; the combination was the offense, and the alleged overt acts were evidentiary.
- The Court applied the general two-year limitations period for offenses not specially limited, concluding the indictments were timely.
- The Court upheld the statutory authorization for appointment of a special district attorney as consistent with the constitutional status of the district attorney.

## Legal Principles

- Offenses that corrupt the integrity of public elections are indictable at common law as misdemeanors.
- In a conspiracy prosecution, the unlawful agreement is the gravamen of the offense; alleged overt acts may be pleaded as evidence even if some acts resemble statutory violations.
- A special statutory limitations period governs only prosecutions for the statutory offenses to which it applies; common-law crimes are governed by the general limitations provision when no special limitation controls.
- Legislative regulation permitting appointment of a special district attorney in specified circumstances does not abolish the constitutional office of district attorney and is not invalid solely because the officer is constitutionally recognized.

## Conclusion

The court reinstated indictments alleging a conspiracy to corrupt an election, holding the conspiracy was a common-law offense subject to a two-year limitations period and that appointment of a special district attorney under existing statute was constitutionally permissible.


Commonwealth v. McHale, 97 Pa. 397 (Pa. 1881)