In this opinion, Ohio will be referred to as the “State” and the respective defendants, Michael Fletcher and Willie Walker, as “defendant Fletcher” and “defendant Walker” except when the reference is to both. In the latter reference, defendant Fletcher and defendant Walker will be called collectively the “defendants.”
I.
On February 2, 1967, defendant Fletcher was indicted by the Cuyahoga County Grand Jury for robbery of a financial institution, with a count for the unlawful entry. A plea of former jeopardy and motion to quash the indictment were filed by the defendant.
Also on February 2, 1967, defendant Fletcher and defendant Walker were jointly indicted for robbery of a financial institution, with a count for the unlawful entry. Pleas of double jeopardy and motions to quash the indictment were filed by both defendants.
The trial court considered the pleas well taken, and the *84motions to quash each of the indictments were sustained with a supporting opinion.1
The State appeals in both instances, as it may, under the decision of the Supreme Court of Ohio in Euclid v. Heaton (1968), 15 Ohio St. 2d 65, 72, where Sections 2945.-67 to 2945.70, Revised Code, were held “constitutionally inoperative to permit an ‘appeal’ in a criminal case on behalf of the prosecutor from any judgment of a trial court not included within the exceptions enumerated in Section 2945.70, Revised Code.” (Emphasis added.)
These appeals will lie because the enumerated exceptions include “a motion to quash.”
The appeals were argued together and, because of common issues, are considered together and decided together. We affirm.
17.
The State indictments rest on the same claimed criminal acts which supported charges pressed to a conclusion against the present defendants in the federal jurisdiction for the Northern District of Ohio. Each defendant acquired his status as an Ohio defendant solely because his actions took place where two levels of government were operative, i. e., federal and state. Neither defendant has been tried on the merits in the Ohio system. A description of the federal proceedings follows.
On January 27, 1967, in United States v. Michael Fletcher, defendant Fletcher was charged by information on two counts for violations of Title 18, Section 2113(a) and (c), U. S. Code. In essence, the two counts charged (1) the armed robbery of a savings and loan association whose deposits were insured by the Federal Savings and Loan Insurance Corporation,2 and (2) the receipt and conceal*85ment of money stolen from a bank whose deposits were insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.3 Defendant Fletcher plead guilty to the federal counts on January 26, 1967, and was sentenced to fifteen years on the first count and ten years on the second — the sentences to run concurrently.
On February 8, 1967, in United States v Willie Walker, defendant Walker was charged by the indictment of a federal grand jury with the violation of Title 18, Section 2113(a), U. S. Code. In fine, the charge was armed robbery of a bank whose deposits were insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation.4 Defendant Walker was found not guilty and an order dismissing the indictment against him was entered on May 1, 1967.
III.
The stance of the facts raises the question of double jeopardy in three aspects — where there have been federal prosecutions resulting in acquittals, convictions or pleas of guilty.5
1. Does the double jeopardy clause in the Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which inhibits successive prosecutions in the federal jurisdiction for the same act, apply to the states through the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?
2. If 1. is answered “Yes,” does the prohibition *86against state action block successive prosecutions in the state jurisdiction?
3. Apart from impediments in the United States Constitution, does Section 10, Article I of the Ohio Constitution prohibit second state prosecutions in Ohio for the claimed criminal acts which induced the prior prosecutions in the federal jurisdiction?
IV.
There is a deceptive simplicity about the general proposition that no man shall be twice in jeopardy in a criminal case. Therefore, to circumscribe that deception we confine ourselves to the questions formulated earlier in this opinion. This limitation avoids some very difficult problems which, if not central to the successive prosecution issue, are so related to it as to warrant a clear disclaimer. We do disclaim any intimation of opinion with respect to such problems as multiple prosecutions where there are multiple victims of a single criminal act,6 or multiple crimes flowing from an act affecting a single victim,7 or splitting causes or collateral estoppel, or when jeopardy has attached to prevent retrial following discharge of a jury or any *87other issues not encompassed in the questions stated in HI. Such problems may generate constitutional questions of due process quite apart from, or interwined with, double jeopardy,8 depending on the factual situation. In any event, those questions are not before us now for decision.
Confining our rule to those successive prosecutions whose succession would not be but for the circumstance of federalism in our scheme of government, we avoid deciding what is not before us and at the same time essay decision on a problem much more manageable because restricted in scope.
V.
The first question posed in III has been answered recently by the Supreme Court of the United States and is no longer in doubt. The double jeopardy stricture of the Fifth Amendment does apply to the states through the providence of the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.9 Benton v. Maryland (1969), 395 U. S. 784, 23 L. Ed. 2d 707.
Since the Benton case reversed a conviction for larceny on a second trial following an earlier acquittal in the same state, it does not reach the question whether the federal proscription against double jeopardy prevents a state prosecution following a federal acquittal or conviction where the only distinction of consequence between the two prosecutions is the source of the prosecuting initiative. Nonetheless, Benton casts a long shadow that makes it necessary to say that the resolution of the second question is in little doubt. That conclusion is supported in part by an analysis of two cases — Barthus v. Illinois (1959), 359 U. S. *88121, 3 L. Ed. 2d 684, and Abbate v. United States (1959), 359 U. S. 187, 3 L. Ed. 2d 729, and in a larger proportion by the inferences to be drawn from Benton, itself.
Before Benton, a strong, although not necessarily conclusive,10 case could be made for the proposition that Bartkus v. Illinois, id., held definitively that an acquittal on a federal charge did not foreclose an indictment and conviction for the same acts in a state jurisdiction.
In Bartkus, the petitioner was first acquitted on a bank robbery charge in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois and then convicted under the Illinois robbery statute on an indictment reciting facts substantially identical to the facts in the prior federal indictment.
The Supreme Court of the United States, invoking an elaborate history to support the proposition that the federal bill of rights was not intended to apply to the states through a shorthand labeled “Due Process,” Bartkus v. Illinois, supra (359 U. S. at 124-136, 3 L. Ed. 2d at 687-694),11 sustained the state conviction but paid its respects to the “double sovereignty” issue12 by noting that the same his*89tory, reflected and confirmed in judicial precedent, revealed that the widely followed practice was to allow second prosecutions ‘ ‘ even though there had been a prior trial by another government.”13 The majority declined to interpose the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to bar a second prosecution in “disregard of a long, unbroken, unquestioned course of impressive adjudication”14 and assigned an additional “practical justification” in support of the declination. The justification was that a rule refusing to bar a second prosecution would prevent displacement of the states’ reserve power to act, thus preventing federal action involving a relatively minor penalty from blocking *90state action to prosecute a much more serious offense rising from the same facts.15
The “no bar” conclusion in Barthus, Mr. Justice Frankfurter said, was supported alike by “ [Precedent, experience and reason.”16
*91Whatever the uses of history, they provide neither a mechanistic nor universal standard for the application of law. Least of all do they provide an excuse for ignoring the implications of a recent instruction from the highest court in the land. In deciding Benton v. Maryland, supra, Mr. Justice Marshall said, for the majority, that the prohibition against double jeopardy in the Fifth Amendment applied to the states through the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It was, he declared, “Like the right to trial by Jury * * * clearly ‘fundamental to the American scheme of justice.’ ”17 Double jeopardy could hardly have been characterized otherwise. For if the right to counsel, Gideon v. Wainwright (1963), 372 U. S. 335, 9 L. Ed. 2d 799, and self-incrimination, Malloy v. Hogan (1964), 378 U. S. 1, 12 L. Ed. 2d 653, Murphy v. Water Front Commission of New York Harbor (1964), 378 U. S. 52, 12 L. Ed. 2d 678, are examples of fundamentals, a fortiori double jeopardy is. Moreover, the Benton majority noted a recent tendency of the Court, crucial here, “ ‘increasingly * * * [to look] to the specific guarantees of the [Bill of Rights] to determine whether a state criminal trial was conducted with due process of law.’ ” 395 U. S. at 794, 23 L. Ed 2d at 715.
With this teaching in hand, and recognizing the degree of reliance in Bartkus on precedents and concepts now weakened, if not repudiated, we conclude that the rule of Bartkus is so enfeebled18 as to lack all binding force.
*92The effects are several. Bartkus and cases of the same genns may he eliminated from further consideration. Therefore, whatever support by projection or analogy Bartkus lent Abbate is gone.
However, the present cases involve second jeopardies in a state jurisdiction after (1) federal acquittal and (2) a federal plea of guilty. And the Benton rule, limited by the facts of that case (successive prosecutions in the same state jurisdiction), reaches only by implication the issue of prior jeopardy in one jurisdiction as a bar to a later prosecution in a second jurisdiction. Nonetheless, that implication clouds Abbate v. United States (1959), 359 U. S. 187, 3 L. Ed. 2d 729, which, before Benton, might have been thought dispositive, by analogy, of the dual sovereignty-successive jeopardy issue because it held that an Illinois conviction did not bar further prosecution and conviction on federal charges growing out of the same acts. But, Abbate, even without Benton, is susceptible to the interpretation that in it the Supreme Court was merely fashioning a rule to protect the jurisdiction of the federal courts, thus exposing a concern19 which reveals the obverse side of that sensitivity to federal-state relationships which found expression in Mr. Justice Frankfurter’s feeling for states’ rights in Bartkus. In this view, the Ab-bate response represents only the Court’s reaction to its supervisory responsibility for the federal court system. See Rea v. United States (1956), 350 U. S. 214, 216-217, 100 L. Ed. 233, 236-237. Certainly, the principle of Abbate mounts no constitutional mandate binding state courts not to treat a prior federal jeopardy as a bar to subsequent criminal proceedings by the states. Indeed, a close reading of both Abbate and Benton shows state courts to be unin*93structed on the issue except by projection from Benton. While the idea that the prohibition against double jeopardy is “ ‘fundamental to the American scheme of justice’ ” hardly presages a narrow future view of the constitutional scope of the double jeopardy clause, it is less than an explicit directive.
Were we required to estimate the implications of Benton for the future, our estimate would be that the Supreme Court of the United States will eventually hold it constitutionally requisite that state courts find prior federal jeopardy a bar to state prosecutions for the same act. Without extensive analysis, we note that every justification advanced in Benton to support the ending of “state on state” jeopardy applies with equal force to successive jeopardies where the singular distinction between the causes stems from the jurisdiction in which the first action is begun.
Only the “dual sovereignty” idea, an abstraction,20 can be advanced to excuse federal after state or state after federal prosecutions. If it be thought that sovereignty insulates and protects successive prosecutions, it is most significant that an extinction of part of state sovereignty (the incorporation of the federal double jeopardy clause into strictures against state action imposed by Due Process under the Fourteenth Amendment) was utilized in Benton to accomplish the result in that case. In addition, it is of the utmost relevance to a forecast of future constitutional development that, although Benton did not overrule Barthus specifically, it did overrule Palho, a major underpinning of Barthus, to the extent inconsistent with the Benton rule. (See footnote 18, supra.)
No doubt there are values in the offsetting of powers and the decentralization of government, which double so*94vereignty effects. But we are considering sovereignty in the United States and not the Balkan states.21 And it is more than doubtful that the Supreme Court of this united country will hold, or should hold, that one of the blessings of freedom insured by the balancing of state and federal power is a permissible form of double jeopardy protected by federalism. Cf. Frankfurter, J., in Bartkus, id. at 137, 3 L. Ed. 2d at 695:
“* * * the men who wrote the Constitution * * * were fearful of the power of centralized government and sought to limit its power.”22
A definitive conclusion, however, must await the case which puts the double jeopardy question as defined by the present facts squarely before the Supreme Court of the United States. Meanwhile, we are faced with the necessity for deciding this case.
From what has been said it is apparent that Abbate and Bartkus leave this court unrestrained in the application of the Due Process clause of the Fourteenth. Amendment. Under the command of that clause, and the compulsion of our duty to uphold the United States Constitution, we conclude that it is incompatible with fundamental justice that a person who has been charged with crime be exposed to jeopardy for the same act first in the federal system and then a second time in the courts of this state. This is so whether “Due Process” in the Fourteenth Amendment encompasses the double jeopardy provisions of the Fifth Amendment or not. For the double menace from the single act is ‘ ‘ repugnant to the conscience of man*95kind.”23 See Palko v. Connecticut, supra, at 323. Surely, if that fairness, which is the essence of dne process, is to he more than an nnfonnded hope, one of its ingredients must be the assurance that one charged with crime hazards liberty or life but once for the same misconduct.
A justification for a quickened conscience on this question came on review of a second prosecution after an acquittal in United States v. Green (1957), 355 U. S. 184, 187-188, 2 L. Ed. 2d 199, 204. The reasons can hardly be stated better:
“* * * the State with all its resources and power should not be allowed to mate repeated attempts to convict an individual for an alleged offense, thereby subjecting him to embarrassment, expense and ordeal and com*96pelling him to live in a continuing state of anxiety and insecurity, as well as enhancing the possibility that even though innocent he may be found guilty.”
The rationale of the Green case does not lose power after a conviction.24
The imperatives of Due Process placed upon us by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution require that the second question in III be answered “Yes” and that the judgment of the trial court be affirmed.25
FI.
There remains the question whether, apart from federal constitutional issues, Section 10, Article I of the Ohio *97Constitution prohibits the state prosecutions now before this court because of prior jeopardies incurred in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio for the same acts.26 For all practical purposes, this is a case of first impression in Ohio.
It is true that in Koch v. State (1895), 53 Ohio St. 433, the Supreme Court of Ohio affirmed a lower court which had sustained a demurrer to a plea in bar entered to an Ohio prosecution instituted under a statute for the “same act” which supported a previous conviction in the Akron May- or’s court. But that decision involved no analysis of the problem. The total opinion was but eleven lines long and the decisional portion but one sentence. In any event, the case did not involve dual sovereignty and preceded Benton v. Maryland, supra, by approximately 75 years. While principles do not necessarily degenerate with age, it seems more than probable that Koch would not survive in the judicial climate which produced Benton, nor even that which produced State v. Shimman (1930), 122 Ohio St. 522.*
In SMmman, the Supreme Court of Ohio indicated approval of the proposition “that prosecution and punishment under one sovereignty does not place the defendant in double jeopardy when prosecuted in the other” (id. at 525). This idea was carried into the first paragraph of the syllabus. However, the court said in a later ease:
“The syllabus of a decision of the Supreme Court of Ohio states the law of Ohio, but such pronouncement must be interpreted with reference to the facts upon which it is predicated and the questions presented to and considered by the Court.” Williamson Heater Co. v. Radich (1934) 128 Ohio St. 124, paragraph one of the syllabus.
*98In the light of the Shimman syllabus, it is significant that in the text of the unanimous opinion in Badich the court said, at 126:
“* * * It [the syllabus] cannot be construed as being any broader than [the] * * * facts warrant. When obiter creeps into a syllabus it must be so recognized and so considered. * * *” (Emphasis added.)
The facts in Shimman reveal that obiter did creep in. For that case involved successive prosecutions in separate Ohio counties for violations arising out of the transportation of liquor in one continuous, uninterrupted transaction from Huron County into Sandusky County, all within the state of Ohio. On this state of the facts, the majority in Shimman found a plea in bar well taken on the ground that a single transaction was involved in the continuous transport, and that a second prosecution would place the defendant twice in jeopardy.27
Thus, it is apparent that the case did not involve two sovereignties and did not reach the issue now before this court and is not, therefore, a binding precedent on that issue. Beyond this, the constitutional development of the past four decades in the United States is of such dimension that it cannot be assumed that the dictum in Shimman provides an accurate guage of the present view of the Supreme Court of Ohio on the law of double jeopardy. It follows that the issue presently before us falls in virtually uncharted Ohio territory.
This does not mean that there are no benchmarks. The Ohio Constitution provides them. To hold that Ohio will allow prosecutions here after a federal jeopardy for the identical acts is to embrace a system of constitutional duality which enables the state to pursue, indeed to hound, a man who either has been found innocent or paid in the coin of another sovereignty for his dereliction.
To harass the innocent, the acquitted, or the guilty who have paid for their miscreance, is not compatible with constitutionally legitimate state action. For on the face of *99it, it is at just such harassment that the injunction of Section 10, Article I of the Ohio Constitution is aimed:
“No person shall be twice put in jeopardy for the same offense.”
That simple, broad, unqualified statement sets out the constitutional policy of Ohio on the issue. The evils that policy was meant to proscribe are not improved because the state and federal sovereignties combine to generate them. It would be incongruous to allow a basic constitutional policy of a state, determined as an aspect of its sovereignty, to be frustrated by a consequence of the duality which allows that sovereignty to exist.28 Furthermore, it would be both inconsistent and ironic to use that federalism, which is justified in the name of protecting freedom, to obliterate a fundamental right.
No interest of the state remains unvindicated after one fair test of guilt. The development of federal constitutional law may eventually impose upon the states29 the rule we now apply. Whether this development eventually takes place or not, the time has come to plainly say on behalf of Ohio, as the Supreme Court of Ohio said in a civil matter: *100of justice as to all parties concerned.” Adams Express Co. v. Beckwith (1919), 100 Ohio St. 348, at 352.30
*99“A decided cause is worth as much as it weighs in reason and righteousness, and no more. It is not enough to say ‘thus saith the court.’ It must prove its right to control in any given situation by the degree in which it supports the rights of a party violated and serves the cause
*100There is no “reason” or “righteousness” and the cause of justice is not served in the second pursuit of one who has endured one jeopardy for the same act31 in the federal jurisdiction. This becomes especially clear when it is considered that to hold otherwise is to require these defendants to either prove twice or pay twice to expiate the same offenses for the sole reason that the acts complained of took place where two layers of government fortuitously coincide. Therefore, the third question in III must be answered affirmatively.
We add the reasons under this section to those in V for affirming the judgment of the trial court.32 The judgment below is affirmed.
Judgment affirmed.
White, C. J., and Wassebman. J., concur.