Court of Common Pleas

“ Under the act of 1895, as under the previous acts of congress, where the matter in controversy exceeds $5 in value, an appeal lies to a court of record from any judgment of a justice of the peace, whether rendered upon a verdict or not, and either party may have a trial by a common-law jury in the appellate court; and the trial by jury in that court is, and the trial before a justice of the peace is not, a trial by jury, within the meaning of the seventh amendment to the constitution. ”

“ The objection to the character of the plaintiff as administrator in this case is not waived by the third plea, which goes to the merits, as contended by counsel. One plea in bar is not waived by the existence of another plea in bar, though the two may be inconsistent in their averments with each other. The remedy of the plaintiff in such case is not by demurrer, but by motion to strike out one of the pleas, or to compel the defendant to elect by which he will abide. ”

“ It is an old rule of pleading, which, in the modern progress of simplifying pleadings, has not lost its virtue, that whenever one justifies in a special plea an act which in itself constitutes at common law a wrong, upon the process, order, or authority of another, he must set forth substantially and in a traversable form the process, order, or authority relied upon, and that no mere averment of its legal effect, without other statement, will answer. ”

“ Upon the whole, we are of opinion that the third and fifth pleas, upon which the circuit court gave judgment in favour of the defendant are bad in law; and therefore the judgment ought to be reversed, and judgment thereon be entered in favour of the United States: and the cause remanded to the circuit court for further proceedings. ”

“ Hence it is, that pleas to the jurisdiction or in abatement, are deemed inconsistent with those which appertain to the merits of a cause; they are tried upon different views as to the relations of the parties, and result in different conclusions. A striking illustration of the mischiefs flowing from the departure from the rule just stated, is seen in the practice attempted in the case before us. If it could be imagined that the plea to the jurisdiction and the plea to the merits, could be regularly committed to the jury at the same time, the verdict might involve the following absurdities. ”

“ The right of a court to prescribe rules to regulate the time and manner of filing pleas is beyond question, if they are reasonable, and such rules are indispensable to the dispatch of business and the orderly administration of justice. ”

“ If in our examination of the decision of the Circuit Court, it were deemed necessary to pass upon the legal effect of the pleas tendered by the defendants below, and overruled by the court, we could have no hesitation in pronouncing each of those pleas bad upon demurrer. It is a settled rule in pleading, that wherever a plea in its commencement professes to respond to the entire declaration or count, and is in substance and reality in answer to part only of such declaration or count, the plea is bad, and the defect may be availed of, upon demurrer. ”

“ That the acts and proceedings of these special tribunals need not be according to the course of the common law, but must be according to the exigencies of the state. Such has been the practice from the earliest period of the commonwealth, allowing finally, on appeal or otherwise, a trial by jury, since 1785. 7. That the proceedings of such tribunals, however constituted, are entitled to respect; they are not to be collaterally questioned; and after a length of time, everything is to be presumed in their favor, as in favor of any other tribunal. ”

“ Much inconvenience had been previously felt by the profession from the dissimilarity in pleadings, forms, and modes of procedure of the federal courts from those in the courts of the state, consequent upon the general adherence of the former to the common-law forms of actions, pleadings, and modes of procedure; while the distinctions in such forms of action and the system of pleading and the modes of procedure peculiar to them had been in many states abrogated by statute. The new codes of procedure did not require an accurate knowledge of the intricacies of common-law pleading ”

“ There is no precedent for the withdrawal of a plea in bar, to admit either a demurrer or a plea in abatement. On the contrary, it is well settled that a plea, introduced by amendment, must be to the merits of the case. ”

“ Second, that the action of the defendants in withdrawing their pleas and permitting a judgment nil dicit to go against them, because the circuit court had struck from the files their additional pleas attempting to set up a Federal question, was an admission that they had no defense upon the facts of the case, and deprived them of any right to insist upon a Federal question. ”

“ And the said defendants, as to the replications of the said plaintiff to the fourth and sixth pleas of the said defendants, say that the said plaintiff ought not, by reason of any thing by them in said replications alleged, to have or maintain their aforesaid action thereof against them, because they that the other writs of fieri facias founded on judgments recorded in said District Court against the defendant, as described and set forth in said replication, were younger in point of time than the judgment and execution founded thereon in the plea mentioned. ”

“ In courts not of record, which have jurisdiction of misdemeanors, punishable by up to one year's imprisonment, charges are tried without a jury. The defendant may appeal as of right to the circuit court, where he receives a trial de novo. ”

“ In ruling on a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, a federal court is not to overturn a factual conclusion of a state court, including a state appellate court, unless the conclusion is not "fairly supported by the record." ”

“ Where an inferior court can have no jurisdiction of a case of law or equity, the ground of objection is not taken by plea in abatement, as an exception of the given case from the otherwise general jurisdiction of the court; appearance does not cure the defect of judicial power, and it may be relied on by plea, answer, demurrer, or at the trial or hearing. ”

“ If the question had been one of former acquittal,-a much strouger 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. ”

“ They may, also, without prejudice to their co-defendants, be discharged by nolle prosequi; but even as to them, it seems the precedents imposed a restriction; for, it is not permitted, if they have blended their fate with that of their co-defendants, by joining in their pleas. They have then waived their privilege. If their pleas impart no waiver of their privilege, the right of the plaintiff to his nolle prosequi, as to them, is conceded; because the relations of the parties are not altered, nor their rights in any way prejudiced. ”

“ For, if the concurrent jurisdiction of the State courts do not become exclusive, upon a prosecution being commenced and carried on to conviction and punishment, it follows that neither a prosecution nor conviction in a State court can be a bar to a prosecution under the act of Congress in the federal courts ”

“ The first point that naturally arises in the presentation of the defense of our client is that which concerns the plea that has been made to the jurisdiction of the commission to try her—a plea which by no means implies anything against the intelligence, fairness, or integrity of the brilliant and distinguished officers who compose the court, but merely touches the question of the right of this tribunal, under the authority by which it is convoked. ”

“ It is true, where the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court depends on the citizenship of the parties, it is incumbent on the plaintiff to allege on the record the necessary citizenship; but when he has done so, the defendant must interpose a plea in abatement, the allegations whereof show that the court has not jurisdiction; and it is incumbent on him to prove the truth of his plea. ”

“ We therefore conclude that circuit courts of appeals do have the power under § 262 of the Judicial Code to issue an order in the nature of a writ of habeas corpus commanding that a prisoner be brought to the courtroom to argue his own appeal. ”

“ Opinion in England has hitherto been against subjecting a man to serious punishment as a result of conviction before a judge sitting without a jury, and the judges themselves would be the first to deprecate so great a responsibility, and the Criminal Appeal Act 1907, which constituted the court of criminal appeal, recognized the responsibility by requiring a quorum of three judges in order to constitute a court. The same act, by permitting an appeal to persons convicted on indictment both on questions of fact and of law, removed to a great extent any possibility of error by a jury. ”

“ We are of opinion, that where the defendants sever in their pleadings, a nolle prosequi ought to be allowed. It is a practice which violates no rules of pleading, and will generally subserve the public convenience. In the administration of justice, matter of form, not absolutely subjected to authority, may well yield to the substantial purposes of justice. ”

“ Where a State law, in force when the act was passed, has abolished the different forms of action, and the forms of pleading appropriate to them, and has substituted a simple petition or complaint setting forth the facts, and prescribed the subsequent proceedings of pleading or practice to raise the issues of law or fact in the case, such law is undoubtedly obligatory upon the courts of the United States in that locality. ”

“ If the plaintiff may, in any case, recover a judgment against one on a joint action against two, who sever in their pleadings, it is wholly immaterial to the regularity and effect of that judgment, in what stage of the cause the suit has ceased to be prosecuted against the other. ”

“ Technical estoppels, as contended by the defendants, must be pleaded with great strictness, but when a former judgment is set up, in bar of an action, or as having determined the entire merits of the controversy, it is not required to be pleaded with any greater strictness than any other plea in bar, or any plea in avoidance of the matters alleged in the antecedent pleading of the opposite party. ”

“ U.S.C.onst. art. 1, § 8, cl. 3. The conclusion of the plea was that the plaintiff could not 'recover the penalty in his declaration demanded,' and the defendant prayed judgment. The court refused to allow the plea to be filed, and the defendant excepted. A trial followed, at which the plaintiff got a judgment. ”

“ We think, as the Court of Appeals held and respondent concedes, that, apart from the prescribed penalty, the offense of which petitioner was convicted is, by its nature, of this class, and that were it not for the severity of the punishment, the offender could not, under our decisions, claim a trial by jury as of right. ”

“ At the trial the counsel for the defendants, after the evidence was closed, asked the court, in substance, to instruct the jury that if they should be of opinion that the defendants had maintained and proved the facts alleged in their plea, they must find for the defendants. The court refused this instruction. Ought it to have been refused? If in the opinion of the jury the defendants have proved maintained every fact alleged in the plea on which the issue they are sworn to try is joined, ought not the jury to find that issue for the defendants? ”

“ And we have jurisdiction of a writ of error or appeal by a defendant when the recovery against him is as much in amount or value as is required to bring a case here, and when, having pleaded a set-off or counter-claim for enough to give us jurisdiction, he is defeated upon his plea altogether, or recovers only an amount or value which, being deducted from his claim as pleaded, leaves enough to give us jurisdiction, which has not been allowed. ”

“ A challenge to a plea of guilty made by an indigent defendant, for whom no lawyer has been provided, on the ground that the plea was entered in reliance upon advice given by a government lawyer-agent, raises serious constitutional questions. ”

“ But an examination of these petitions will show that few of them, tested by any rational rules of pleading, actually raise any question of law on which the state court has differed from the understanding prevailing in this Court. The point on which we are urged to overrule state courts almost invariably is in their appraisal of facts. For example, the jury, the trial judge, and one or more appellate courts below have held that conflicting evidence proves a confession was voluntary; the prisoner wants us to say the evidence proves it was coerced. ”

“ One alternative may do justice in one case, and the other in a different case. In choosing a remedy, however, a court ought to accord a defendant's preference considerable, if not controlling, weight inasmuch as the fundamental rights flouted by a prosecutor's breach of a plea bargain are those of the defendant, not of the State. ”