The Supreme Court of the District of Columbia had jurisdiction
and authority to determine the validity of the Act of July 23,
1892, c. 236, which authorized the waiver of a jury and to dispose
of the question as to whether the record of a conviction before a
judge without a jury, where the prisoner waived trial by jury
according to statute, was legitimate proof of a first offense, and
this being so, this Court cannot review the action of that court
and the court of appeals in this particular on habeas corpus.
The general rule is that the writ of habeas corpus will not
issue unless the court under whose warrant the petitioner is held
is without jurisdiction, and that it cannot be used to correct
errors.
Ordinarily a writ of habeas corpus will not lie where there is a
remedy by writ of error or appeal; but in rare and exceptional
cases, it may be issued although such remedy exists.
Page 159 U. S. 96
The case is stated in the opinion.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an application for leave to file a petition for the writ
of habeas corpus directed to the superintendent of the Albany
County Penitentiary, in the State of New York, for the discharge of
petitioner, now held in the custody of said superintendent under
sentence of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia. The case
is thus stated by the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
on affirming the judgment below:
"The appellant, William Belt, alias William Jones, was indicted
in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, holding a
criminal court, and convicted on the twentieth day of February,
A.D. 1894, of a second offense of larceny, and sentenced to three
years' imprisonment in the penitentiary. The conviction was under
section 1158 of the Revised Statutes of the United States for the
District of Columbia, which provides that:"
" Every person convicted of feloniously stealing, taking, and
carrying away any goods or chattels, or other personal property, of
the value of thirty-five dollars or upward, . . . shall be
sentenced to suffer imprisonment and labor, for the first offence
for a period not less than one nor more than three years, and for
the second offence for a period not less than three nor more than
ten years."
"At the trial of the case, after proof of the special offense
charged against the defendant, the prosecution proceeded to prove
that it was the defendant's second offense of the kind by offering
in evidence the record of his previous conviction of the crime of
larceny in the Police Court of the District of Columbia, on April
8, 1893. To the admission of this record in evidence objection was
made on the ground that it showed on its face a waiver of the right
of trial by jury on the part of the prisoner, and a trial and
conviction by the court alone,
Page 159 U. S. 97
without a jury -- a method of procedure claimed to be in
violation of the Constitution of the United States, and therefore
null and void. The objection was overruled and exception taken, and
upon that exception the case has been brought by appeal to this
court."
The opinion of the court of appeals will be found reported 22
Wash.Law Rep. 447. The court held that the Act of Congress of July
23, 1892, c. 236, 27 Stat. 261, providing that in prosecutions in
the police court of the District in which, according to the
Constitution, the accused would be entitled to a jury trial, the
accused might in open court expressly waive such trial by jury and
request to be tried by the judge, in which case the trial should be
by the judge, and the judgment and sentence should have the same
force and effect as if entered and pronounced upon the verdict of a
jury, was constitutional and valid, and that the record of a trial,
conviction, and sentence by a judge under such a waiver was
competent evidence, on an indictment for a similar offense, to
prove that it was the defendant's second offense of the same
kind.
It is contended that the sentence as for a second offense under
which petitioner is held is void because the first conviction of
petitioner was void and of no effect in law, inasmuch as the
constitutional requirement of trial by jury in criminal cases could
not be waived by the accused person, though in pursuance of a
statute that authorized such waiver.
Does the ground of this application go to the jurisdiction or
authority of the Supreme Court of the District, or rather is it not
an allegation of mere error? If the latter, it cannot be reviewed
in this proceeding.
In re Schneider, 148 U.
S. 162, and cases cited.
In
Ex Parte Bigelow, 113 U. S. 328,
which was a motion for leave to file a petition for habeas corpus,
the petitioner had been convicted and sentenced in the Supreme
Court of the District to imprisonment for five years under an
indictment for embezzlement. It appeared that there were pending
before that court fourteen indictments against the petitioner for
embezzlement, and an order of the court had directed that they be
consolidated under the statute and tried together. A
Page 159 U. S. 98
jury was impaneled and sworn, and the district attorney had made
his opening statement to the jury, when the court took a recess,
and, upon reconvening a short time afterwards, the court decided
that the indictments could not be well tried together, and directed
the jury to be discharged from the further consideration of them,
and rescinded the order of consolidation. The prisoner was
thereupon tried before the same jury on one of the indictments, and
found guilty. All of this was against his protest and without his
consent. The judgment on the verdict was taken by appeal to the
Supreme Court of the District in general term, where it was
affirmed. It was argued here, as it was in the court in general
term, that the impaneling and swearing of the jury, and the
statement of his case by the district attorney, put the prisoner in
jeopardy in respect of all the offenses charged in the consolidated
indictment within the meaning of the Fifth Amendment, so that he
could not be again tried for any of these offenses, and Mr. Justice
Miller, delivering the opinion of the Court, after remarking that
if the court of the District was without authority in the matter,
this Court would have power to discharge the prisoner from
confinement, said:
"But that court had jurisdiction of the offense described in the
indictment on which the prisoner was tried. It had jurisdiction of
the prisoner, who was properly brought before the court. It had
jurisdiction to hear the charge and the evidence against the
prisoner. It had jurisdiction to hear and to decide upon the
defenses offered by him. The matter now presented was one of those
defenses. Whether it was a sufficient defense was a matter of law,
on which that court must pass so far as it was purely a question of
law, and on which the jury, under the instructions of the court,
must pass, if we can suppose any of the facts were such as required
submission to the jury. If the question had been one of former
acquittal -- a much stronger case than this -- the court would have
had jurisdiction to decide upon the record whether there had been a
former acquittal for the same offense, and, if the identity of the
offense were in dispute, it might be necessary on such a plea to
submit that question to the jury on the issue raised by the plea.
The same principle would apply to a plea of a former conviction.
Clearly in these cases, the court not only has jurisdiction to try
and decide the question raised, but it is its imperative duty to do
so. If the court makes a mistake on such trial, it is error which
may be corrected by the usual modes of correcting such errors, but
that the court had jurisdiction to decide upon the matter raised
by
Page 159 U. S. 99
the plea, both as matter of law and of fact, cannot be doubted.
. . . It may be confessed that it is not always very easy to
determine what matters go to the jurisdiction of a court so as to
make its action when erroneous a nullity. But the general rule is
that when the court has jurisdiction by law of the defense charged
and of the party who is so charged, its judgments are not
nullities."
And the application was denied.
In
Hallinger v. Davis, 146 U.
S. 314,
146 U. S. 318,
it was said by this Court:
"Upon the question of the right of one charged with crime to
waive a trial by jury and elect to be tried by the court, when
there is a positive legislative enactment giving the right so to do
and conferring power on the court to try the accused in such a
case, there are numerous decisions by state courts upholding the
validity of such proceeding,
Dailey v. State, 4 Ohio St.
57;
Dillingham v. State, 5 Ohio St. 280;
People v.
Noll, 20 Cal. 164;
State v. Worden, 46 Conn. 349;
State v. Albee, 61 N.H. 423, 428."
And see Edwards v. State, 45 N.J.L. 419, 423;
Ward
v. People, 30 Mich. 116;
Connelly v. State, 60 Ala.
89;
Murphy v. State, 97 Ind. 579;
State v.
Sackett, 39 Minn. 69;
Lavery v. Commonwealth, 101
Penn.St. 560;
League v. State, 36 Md. 257, cited by the
Court of Appeals.
Without in the least suggesting a doubt as to the efficacy,
value, and importance of the system of trial by jury in criminal as
well as in civil actions, we are clearly of opinion that the
Supreme Court of the District had jurisdiction and authority to
determine the validity of the act which authorized the waiver of a
jury, and to dispose of the question as to whether the record of a
conviction before a judge without a jury, where the prisoner waived
trial by jury according to statute, was legitimate proof of a first
offense, and, this being so, we
Page 159 U. S. 100
cannot review the action of that court and the Court of Appeals
in this particular on habeas corpus.
The general rule is that the writ of habeas corpus will not
issue unless the court under whose warrant the petitioner is held
is without jurisdiction, and that it cannot be used to correct
errors. Ordinarily, the writ will not lie where there is a remedy
by writ of error or appeal, but in rare and exceptional cases, it
may be issued although such remedy exists. We have heretofore
decided that this Court has no appellate jurisdiction over the
judgments of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia in
criminal cases or on habeas corpus, but whether or not the
judgments of the Supreme Court of the District, reviewable in the
Court of Appeals, may be reviewed ultimately in this Court in such
cases when the validity of a statute of, or an authority exercised
under, the United States is drawn in question we have as yet not
been obliged to determine.
In re Chapman, 156 U.
S. 211. And that inquiry is immaterial here, as we have
no doubt that the courts below had jurisdiction.
Leave denied.