A writ of error does not lie from this Court to the Supreme
Court of the Territory of Montana to review a judgment of that
court affirming the judgment of a district court in that Territory
finding the plaintiff in error guilty of the crime of misdemeanor
and sentencing him to pay a fine.
The Act of March 3, 1885 (23 Stat. 443)
held not to
apply to a criminal case.
This is a writ of error to the Supreme Court of the Territory of
Montana in a criminal case, brought by George W. Farnsworth, who
was proceeded against by an information in the Probate Court in and
for Gallatin County, in that territory, for the crime of
misdemeanor in having, in violation of a statute, as a commercial
traveler, offered for sale in that territory merchandise to be
delivered at a future time without first having obtained a license.
He was arrested, and pleaded
Page 129 U. S. 105
not guilty, and was tried by the court, no jury having been
asked for or demanded.
The court found him guilty, and its judgment was that he pay a
fine of $50 and costs of the prosecution, $17.70, and stand
committed until such fine and costs should be paid. He took an
appeal to the District Court for the County of Gallatin, and the
case was tried by that court, a jury being expressly waived, and it
found him guilty and sentenced him to pay a fine of $50 and all
costs of prosecution. He then took an appeal to the supreme court
of the territory. That court affirmed the judgment of the district
court in January, 1885. 5 Mont. 303, 324. To review that judgment,
the defendant has brought the case to this Court by a writ of
error.
Page 129 U. S. 109
MR. JUSTICE BLATCHFORD delivered the opinion of the Court.
It is very clear that this is a criminal case, and the question
arises whether there is any authority for the review by this Court
of the decision of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Montana in
a criminal case. We have been furnished with a brief on this
subject by the counsel for the plaintiff in error, but we are
unable to find any statutory authority for the jurisdiction of this
Court in this case.
Section 702 of the Revised Statutes provides as follows:
"The final judgments and decrees of the supreme court of any
territory except the Territory of Washington, in cases where the
value of the matter in dispute, exclusive of costs, to be
ascertained by the oath of either party or of other competent
witnesses, exceeds one thousand dollars, may be reviewed and
reversed or affirmed in the Supreme Court, upon writ of error or
appeal, in the same manner and under the same regulations as the
final judgments and decrees of a circuit court. In the Territory of
Washington, the value of the matter in dispute must exceed two
thousand dollars, exclusive of costs. And any final judgment or
decree of the supreme court of said territory, in any cause [when]
the Constitution or a statute or
Page 129 U. S. 110
treaty of the United States is brought in question, may be
reviewed in like manner."
Section 1909 of the Revised Statutes provides that writs of
error and appeals from the final decisions of the supreme court of
any one of eight named territories, of which Montana is one,
"shall be allowed to the Supreme Court of the United States in
the same manner and under the same regulations as from the circuit
courts of the United States, where the value of the property or the
amount in controversy, to be ascertained by the oath of either
party, or of other competent witnesses, exceeds one thousand
dollars, except that a writ of error or appeal shall be allowed to
the Supreme Court of the United States . . . upon writs of habeas
corpus involving the question of personal freedom."
Section 1911 of the Revised Statutes relates exclusively to
writs of error and appeals from Washington Territory. Section 709
applies only to a writ of error to review a final judgment or
decree in a suit in the highest court of a state.
In
Snow v. United States, 118 U.
S. 346, these sections, 702, 709, 1909, and 1911, were
considered in reference to their application to a criminal case
from the Territory of Utah other than a capital case or a case of
bigamy or polygamy, writs of error in which were provided for by §
3 of the Act of June 23, 1874, 18 Stat. 253, and the reasons there
given why they did not apply to or cover such a criminal case show
that they do not apply to or cover a criminal case from the
Territory of Montana.
Reference is made by the plaintiff in error to the case of
Watts v. Territory of Washington, 91 U. S.
580, which was a criminal case from the Territory of
Washington in which it did not appear that the Constitution or any
statute or treaty of the United States had been brought in
question. The jurisdiction of this Court in the case was questioned
as not being embraced by the last clause of § 702 of the Revised
Statutes, before quoted. This Court dismissed the case for want of
jurisdiction, saying that it could only review the final judgments
of the Supreme Court of the Territory of Washington in criminal
cases when the Constitution or a statute or treaty
Page 129 U. S. 111
of the United States was drawn in question. The decision in the
case did not uphold the jurisdiction of this Court in a criminal
case where the Constitution or a statute or treaty of the United
States was drawn in question, and the language of the court in that
respect was
obiter dictum.
It is sought, however, to uphold the jurisdiction in this case
under the provisions of the Act of March 3, 1885, 23 Stat. 443,
which reads as follows:
"No appeal or writ of error shall hereafter be allowed from any
judgment or decree in any suit at law or in equity in the Supreme
Court of the District of Columbia or in the supreme court of any of
the territories of the United States unless the matter in dispute,
exclusive of costs, shall exceed the sum of five thousand
dollars."
"SEC. 2. That the preceding section shall not apply to any case
wherein is involved the validity of any patent or copyright, or in
which is drawn in question the validity of a treaty or statute of,
or an authority exercised under, the United States, but in all such
cases an appeal or writ of error may be brought without regard to
the sum or value in dispute."
In
Snow v. United States, supra, at p.
118 U. S. 351,
it was held that the first section of that statute applied solely
to judgments or decrees in suits at law or in equity measured by a
pecuniary value. But it is contended in the present case that the
operation of such first section is not restricted to civil cases.
It is, however, restricted to cases where the matter in dispute is
measured by a pecuniary value, and it was said by this Court in
Kurtz v. Moffitt, 115 U. S. 487,
115 U. S. 498,
that
"a jurisdiction, conferred by Congress upon any court of the
United States, of suits at law or in equity in which the matter in
dispute exceeds the sum or value of a certain number of dollars
includes no case in which the right of neither party is capable of
being valued in money."
It was further said in
Snow v. United States, supra, at
p.
118 U. S.
354:
"As to the deprivation of liberty, whether as a punishment for
crime or otherwise, it is settled by a long course of decisions,
cited and commented on in
Kurtz v. Moffitt, ubi supra,
that no test of money value can be applied to it to confer
jurisdiction."
In the present case, the information was for the commission
Page 129 U. S. 112
of a crime. The punishment inflicted by the probate court was a
fine of $50 and $17.70 costs, and a judgment that the defendant
stand committed until such fine and costs should be paid. The
judgment of the district court was that the defendant pay a fine of
$50 and all costs of prosecution. The supreme court affirmed, with
costs, the judgment of the district court. The judgment of the
probate court was imprisonment until the payment of the fine and
the costs, and if the fine covered by the judgment of anyone of the
courts could be called a "matter in dispute" within the first
section of the act of 1885, the pecuniary value involved did not
exceed $5,000. So it is plain that the first section of the act of
1885 does not cover the case.
It is claimed, however, that jurisdiction in the present case is
derived from the second section of the act of 1885, and that, under
that section, jurisdiction exists in a criminal case from the
supreme court of a territory, wherein is drawn in question the
validity of a treaty or statute of, or authority exercised under,
the United States. The view urged is that in the present case there
is drawn in question the validity of an authority exercised under
the United States, on the ground that the statute of Montana under
which the conviction was had is invalid, and that, as the
Legislature of Montana, which enacted it, exists under the
authority of the United States, the question of the validity of the
statute raises the question of the validity of an authority
exercised under the United States. But we do not find it necessary
to consider this question, for we are of opinion that the second
section of the act of 1885 does not apply to any criminal case.
That section contains an exception or limitation carved out of the
first section. It declares that the first section
"shall not apply to any case wherein is involved the validity of
any patent or copyright, or in which is drawn in question the
validity of a treaty or statute of, or an authority exercised
under, the United States,"
and then enacts that "in all such cases, an appeal or writ of
error may be brought without regard to the sum or value in
dispute." This clearly implies that the cases to which the second
section is to apply are to be cases where there is a
Page 129 U. S. 113
pecuniary matter in dispute, and where that pecuniary matter is
measurable by some sum or value, and where the case is also one of
the kind mentioned in the second section.
There is another consideration strengthening these views. The
act of 1885 relates to appeals and writs of error from the
judgments and decrees of the Supreme Court of the District of
Columbia and those of the Supreme Court of any of the territories
of the United States. It was not independent legislation, but its
main purpose was merely to increase to over $5,000 the
jurisdictional amount which, by §§ 702 and 1911 of the Revised
Statutes, was required to be over $2,000 for the Territory of
Washington, and, by §§ 702 and 1909, over $1,000 for every other
territory, and, by § 705, as amended by § 4 of the Act of February
25, 1879, 20 Stat. 321, over $2,500 for the District of Columbia.
In all these prior statutes -- sections 702, 705, 1909, 1911, and
the act of 1879 -- it was said that this Court was to review the
judgments and decrees "in the same manner and under the same
regulations" provided as to the final judgments and decrees of a
circuit court. These prior provisions are not repealed, and no
jurisdiction ever existed in this Court to review by writ of error
or appeal the judgment of a circuit court in a criminal case.
In
Smith v. Whitney, 116 U. S. 167,
cited for the plaintiff in error, the jurisdiction of this Court
was maintained, under the first section of the act of 1885, of an
appeal from, and a writ of error to, the Supreme Court of the
District of Columbia in a case where that court, by its judgment,
had dismissed a petition for a writ of prohibition to a
court-martial convened to try an officer for an offense punishable
by dismissal from the service and the deprivation of a salary
which, during the term of his office, would exceed the sum of
$5,000. A writ of prohibition is a civil remedy, given in a civil
action -- as much so as a writ of habeas corpus, which this Court
has held to be a civil, and not a criminal, proceeding, even when
instituted to arrest a criminal prosecution.
Ex Parte Tom
Tong, 108 U. S. 556. It
would have been easy for Congress to confer upon this
Page 129 U. S. 114
Court jurisdiction in criminal cases from the territories by
plain and explicit language, and for the reason that no such
jurisdiction exists by statute in the present case,
The writ of error is dismissed.