Harlan F. Stone

“ Persons guilty of violating state laws affecting maritime activity may be prosecuted by in personam actions in state courts, [17] and the admiralty courts themselves can helpfully enforce state laws through in rem proceedings. [18] I do not believe, however, that the Judiciary Act permits states, through state common law courts which cannot reasonably be expected to have knowledge of admiralty law and practice, to give permanent halt to any portion of the maritime trade and commerce of the nation by bringing in rem proceedings against ships. ”

“ While the English Acts of Navigation and Trade and numerous other forfeiture statutes conferred jurisdiction on all the English common law courts of record [3] to entertain suits for forfeiture, nevertheless suitors having ready access to the convenient procedure of exchequer or admiralty in qui tam actions seem to have had little occasion to resort to the King's Bench or Common Pleas. In the occasional reported forfeiture cases brought in King's Bench, the English reports give us little light on the procedure followed or the precise from of judgment entered. ”

“ The Providence, 1692, 13 Id. 320, 327 (see also Edward Randolph, vol. 5, p. 139) ; The Ann of New Castle, 1692, 8 Archives 445-47; The Margaret, 1692, 8 Id. 489-91, and again in 1694, 20 Id. 42-43, 65, 142, 184. The Ann of Maryland was acquitted at a special court of oyer and terminer in 1694; she was tried before the Provincial Court later the same year and acquitted by the jury; the judgment was reversed on appeal in May 1695; upon a second trial in the Provincial Court on a new information the jury again acquitted her in August 1695, but the proceedings on the second appeal are incomplete. ”

“ Such a statute was considered in 1823 in Corfield v. Coryell, Fed.Cas.No.3,230, 4 Wash.C.C. 371, (cited in Smith v. Maryland, supra, 18 How. at page 75, 15 L.Ed. 269) , where a New Jersey state court forfeiture of a vessel under a statute regulating the Delaware Bay was upheld as constitutional by Justice Washington, without question of the state court's jurisdiction because of the in rem nature of the proceeding. ”

“ We granted certiorari, 316 U.S. 643, 62 S.Ct. 1036, 86 L.Ed. 1728, the question being of importance in defining the jurisdiction of state courts in relation to the admiralty jurisdiction.
Only a single issue is presented by the record and briefs whether the state is precluded by the Constitution and laws of the United States from entertaining the present suit. It is not questioned that the state has authority to regulate fishing in its navigable waters, Manchester v. ”

“ Iowa Code 1939, §§ 1794.099-1794.102; Kentucky Rev.Stat.1942, 150.120; Louisiana Gen.Stat., Dart.1932, §§ 3074, (Act La. No. 67 of 1932 § 23) 3108, (Act La. No. 50 of 1932 § 18) 3118 (Act La. No. 134 of 1932, § 6) ”