A justice of the peace in the District of Columbia is an officer
of the government of the United States, and is exempt from militia
duty.
The court martial has not exclusive jurisdiction of that
question, and its sentence is not conclusive.
Trespass lies against a collector of militia fines who distrains
for a fine imposed by a court martial upon a person not liable to
be enrolled in the militia, the court martial having no
jurisdiction in such cases.
Page 7 U. S. 332
Error to the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia in an
action of trespass
vi et armis for entering the
plaintiff's house and taking away his goods. The defendant
justified as collector of militia fines. The plaintiff replied that
at the time when, &c., he was one of the United States justices
of the peace for the County of Alexandria. This replication, upon a
general demurrer, was, by a majority of the court below, adjudged
bad, whereupon the plaintiff sued out a writ of error, and the
questions made on the argument were,
1. Whether a justice of the peace for the County of Alexandria
was liable to do militia duty, and
2. Whether an action of trespass will lie against the officer
who makes distress for a fine assessed upon a justice of the peace
by a court martial.
Page 7 U. S. 335
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE MARSHALL delivered the opinion of the
Court.
In this case, two points have been made by the plaintiff in
error.
1st. That a justice of the peace in the District of Columbia is,
by the laws of the United States, exempt from militia duty.
2d. That an action of trespass lies against the officer who
makes distress in order to satisfy a fine assessed upon a justice
of the peace by a court-martial.
1. Is a justice of the peace exempt from militia duty?
The militia law of the district refers to the general law of the
United States, and adopts the enumeration there made of persons who
have this privilege. That enumeration commences with "the
Vice-President of the United States and the officers judicial and
executive of the government of the United States."
It is contended by the plaintiff and denied by the defendant
that a justice of the peace within the District is either a
judicial or an executive officer of the government in the sense in
which those terms are used in the law.
Page 7 U. S. 336
It has been decided in this Court that a justice of the peace is
an officer; nor can it be conceived that the affirmative of this
proposition, was it now undecided, could be controverted. Under the
sanction of a law, he is appointed by the President, by and with
the advice and consent of the Senate, and receives his commission
from the president. We know not by what terms an officer can be
defined which would not embrace this description of persons. If he
is an officer, he must be an officer under the government of the
United States. Deriving all his authority from the legislature and
President of the United States, he certainly is not the officer of
any other government.
But it is contended that he is not an officer in the sense of
the militia law; that the meaning of the words "judicial and
executive officers of the government" must be restricted to the
officers immediately employed in the high judicial and executive
departments, and in support of this construction the particular
enumeration which follows those words is relied on -- an
enumeration which, it is said, would have been useless had the
legislature used the words in the extended sense contended for by
the plaintiff. A distinction has also been attempted between an
officer of the United States and an officer of the government of
the United States confining the latter more especially to those
officers who are considered as belonging to the high departments;
but in this distinction there does not appear to the Court to be a
solid difference. They are terms which may be used indifferently to
express the same idea.
If a justice of the peace is an officer of the government of the
United States, he must be either a judicial or an executive
officer. In fact, his powers, as defined by law, seem partly
judicial and partly executive. He is, then, within the letter of
the exemption, and of course must be considered as comprehended
within its proper construction unless there be something in the act
which requires a contrary interpretation. The enumeration which
follows this general description of officers is urged as furnishing
the guide which shall lead us to the more limited construction. But
to this
Page 7 U. S. 337
argument it has very properly been answered by the counsel for
the plaintiff that the long enumeration of characters exempted from
militia duty which follows presents only one description of persons
-- custom house officers and those who hold a commission from the
President or are appointed by him -- and of these by far the
greater number do not hold such commission. The argument,
therefore, not being supported by the fact, is inapplicable to the
case.
The law furnishing no justification for a departure from the
plain and obvious import of the words, the Court must, in
conformity with that import, declare that a justice of the peace
within the District of Columbia is exempt from the performance of
militia duty.
It follows from this opinion that a court martial has no
jurisdiction over a justice of the peace as a militiaman; he could
never be legally enrolled, and it is a principle that a decision of
such a tribunal in a case clearly without its jurisdiction cannot
protect the officer who executes it. The court and the officer are
all trespassers.
The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded for further
proceedings.