People's Court

“ Resolved, The Senate concurring, That we regard the action of the Supreme Court of the United States, in assuming jurisdiction in the case before mentioned, as an arbitrary act of power, unauthorized by the Constitution, and virtually superseding the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus and prostrating the rights and liberties of the people at the foot of unlimited power. ”

“ The people of the United States have vested that power in this tribunal, and its highest duty is to exercise it with fidelity. The point of difficulty in this case is to decide, whether the legitimate exercise of this power has been obstructed by the judgment of the court of errors of New York, now under consideration. ”

“ At the same time, the candid citizen must confess that if the policy of the government, upon vital questions affecting the whole people, is to be irrevocably fixed by decisions of the Supreme Court, the instant they are made, in ordinary litigation between parties in personal actions, the people will have ceased to be their own rulers, having to that extent practically resigned the government into the hands of that eminent tribunal. Nor is there in this view any assault upon the court or the judges. ”

“ It is hard to believe that this Court should hold that a member of the legal profession is constitutionally entitled to remove his case from the court in which he is an officer to the public and press, and express to them his grievances against the conduct of the trial and the judge. ”

“ In addition, a judicial exception to the longstanding policy evidenced by the statute has been made where a person about to be prosecuted in a state court can show that he will, if the proceeding in the state court is not enjoined, suffer irreparable damages. ”

“ If a case is open for trial on the merits, an application for its removal before that trial commences is made 'before the trial thereof.' In our opinion, the interpretation adopted by the court defeats the purpose which congress had in view for the protection of persons sued elsewhere than in the state of which they are citizens. ”

“ If relief on equitable grounds is to be obtained it is right that it should be sought by a formal suit upon adequate pleadings and should be granted only after a trial of issues according to the usual course of the trial of questions of fact. A court of first instance is the appropriate tribunal, and the only tribunal, equipped for such a trial. Appellate courts have neither the power nor the means to that end. ”

“ Every one connected with these branches of the public service is amenable to the jurisdiction which Congress has created for their government, and, while thus serving, surrenders his right to be tried by the civil courts. All other persons, citizens of states where the courts are open, if charged with crime, are guaranteed the inestimable privilege of trial by jury. ”

“ Moreover, in view of our heritage and the history of the adoption of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, it seems peculiarly anomalous to say that trial before a civilian judge and by an independent jury picked from the common citizenry is not a fundamental right. ”

“ Surely it may be assumed as a postulate, that a court of justice, in adjudicating upon the rights of the citizen or of the State, should do, and can have power to do, nothing which is irregular, or vain, or useless. ”

“ Section 3 of the Act of 1937 directs that a court of three judges is to be convened whenever an interlocutory or permanent injunction is sought 'suspending or restraining the enforcement, operation, or execution of, or setting aside, in whole or in part, any Act of Congress' upon the ground that it is repugnant to the Constitution. ”

“ I do not pretend that this court should take up questions not arising upon the record, but I do contend that it is competent for the court, when once it has acquired jurisdiction of a case, to see that the life or liberty of the citizen is not wantonly sacrificed because of some imperfect statement of the party's rights. ”

“ The principle that a State conviction is a bar to a federal prosecution, and that, where there is concurrent jurisdiction, the tribunal first taking jurisdiction afterwards holds that jurisdiction, and exercises it throughout, to the exclusion of all others, necessarily leads to this result. ”

“ We see no difference in principle between the cases supposed and the case before us. Every citizen is entitled to resort to all the courts of the country, and to invoke the protection which all the laws or all those courts may afford him. A man may not barter away his life or his freedom, or his substantial rights. In a criminal case, he cannot, as was held in Cancemi's Case, [3] be tried in any other manner than by a jury of twelve men, although he consent in open court to be tried by a jury of eleven men. ”

“ Inasmuch as due process implies a tribunal both impartial and mentally competent to afford a hearing, it follows that the subjection of a defendant's liberty or property to the decision of a court, the judge of which has a direct, personal, substantial pecuniary interest in rendering a verdict against him, is violative of the Fourteenth Amendment. ”

“ A Court recognized in, and drawing its life and jurisdiction from, the Constitution was to act as a court of appeal to review the process and judgment of that extra-constitutional tribunal, which had, summarily and without legal warrant, put a free American woman to a felon’s death. ”

“ But when a subordinate officer of the State, in violation of State law, undertakes to deprive an accused party of a right which the statute law accords to him, as in the case at bar, it can hardly be said that he is denied, or cannot enforce, 'in the judicial tribunals of the State' the rights which belong to him. In such a case it ought to be presumed the court will redress the wrong. If the accused is deprived of the right, the final and practical denial will be in the judicial tribunal which tries the case, after the trial has commenced. ”

“ Judges who perform 'judicial' functions on Article I courts do not adjudicate 'cases' or 'controversies' in the sense of Article III. They are not bound by the requirements of the Seventh Amendment concerning trial by jury. ”

“ Congress had so determined, in the 34th section of the Judiciary Act, by which the State laws were made 'rules of decision in trials at common law in the Courts of the United States, in cases where they apply.' They do apply in the decision of all controversies between citizens of different States, or between aliens and citizens. ”

“ In view of the fact that the question in the case was regarded below, both by the courts and by counsel, as one of 'general' or 'federal' law, the interest of justice requires that the judgment be vacated and the cause remanded for the enforcement of the applicable principles of state law. ”

“ Judges who sit on Article I courts are chosen for administrative or allied skills, not for their qualifications to sit in cases involving the vast interests of life, liberty, or property for whose protection the Bill of Rights and the other guarantees in the main body of the Constitution, including the ban on bills of attainder and ex post facto laws, were designed. Judges who might be confirmed for an Article I court might never pass muster for the onerous and life-or-death duties of Article III judges. ”

“ If such judge or judicial officer, before the bill of exceptions is settled, dies, is removed from office, becomes disqualified, is absent from said island, or refuses to settle the bill of exceptions, or if no mode is provided by law for the settlement of the same, it shall be settled and certified in such manner as the Supreme Court may by its orders or rules direct. ”

“ The conduct of parties, witnesses and counsel in a case, as well the conduct of the jurors and officers of the court, may be of such a character as not only to defeat the rights of litigants, but it may directly affect the administration of public justice. In the very nature of things the courts of each jurisdiction must each be in a position to adopt and enforce their own self-preserving rules. ”

“ And Congress have an equal right to apply a like provision to all other acts of all other officers done under color of office, and the trial by jury may, in suits at common law, be completely taken away in all such cases, and the right of final decision be exclusively vested in the executive, or in any other public functionary, at the pleasure of Congress. ”

“ Even my counsel, the Hon. Henry R. Selden, who has argued my cause so ably, so earnestly, so unanswerably before your honor, is my political sovereign. Precisely as no disfranchised person is entitled to sit upon a jury, and no woman is entitled to the franchise, so, none but a regularly admitted lawyer is allowed to practice in the courts, and no woman can gain admission to the bar—hence, jury, judge, counsel, must all be of the superior class.
Judge Hunt—The Court must insist—the prisoner has been tried according to the established forms of law. ”

“ Whatever may be the power of the states in respect of grand and petit juries, it is firmly settled that the Constitution absolutely forbids the trial and conviction, in a Federal civil tribunal, of any one charged with crime, otherwise than upon the presentment or indictment of a grand jury, and the unanimous verdict of a petit jury, composed, as at common law, of twelve jurors. ”

“ Congress having exercised its constitutional authority to impose on the Government a legally binding obligation, the decisive question is whether it invaded the judicial province of the Court of Claims by directing it to determine the extent of the obligation by reference, as directed, to the specified facts, and to give judgment for that amount. ”

“ Whenever and wherever a judicial tribunal is authorized to pass upon any matter or right, and it does pass upon it, it must be regarded res adjudicata, subject only to be reversed on error. The United States, in harmony with its duty, has, in many instances, authorized the judiciary to determine controverted questions between the citizen and the government. ”

“ Radical reinterpretations of the statutory phrase 'decision arresting a judgment' are said to be necessary in order to effectuate a broad policy, found to be underlying the Criminal Appeals Act, that this Court review important legal issues. The axiom that courts should endeavor to give statutory language that meaning that nurtures the policies underlying legislation is one that guides us when circumstances not plainly covered by the terms of a statute are subsumed by the underlying policies to which Congress was committed. ”

“ To require a federal judge exercising habeas corpus jurisdiction to attempt to combine within himself the proper functions of judge and jury in a state trial-to ask him to approximate the sympathies of the defendant's peers or to make the rulings which the state trial judge might make, within the exercise of his discretion concerning the admission of evidence at the borderline of constitutional permissibility-is potentially to prejudice state defendants claiming federal rights and to pre-empt functions that belong to state machinery in the administration of state criminal law. ”

“ The outcome, by the very testimony of the defendants, attests the wisdom of the course pursued by the government, and that it was well not to oppose force simply by force, but to invoke the jurisdiction and judgment of those tribunals to whom by the constitution and in accordance with the settled conviction of all citizens is committed the determination of questions of right and wrong between individuals, masses, and states. ”

“ But where as here, neither the constitutional provision nor any act of Congress affords a remedy to any person, the mere assertion by a plaintiff that he is entitled to such a remedy cannot be said to satisfy jurisdictional requirements. ”

“ So that the proceeding by which the fine and imprisonment imposed upon these parties for contempt in violating the injunction of the court, regularly issued in a suit to which they were parties is due process of law, and always has been due process of law, and is the process or proceeding by which courts have from time immemorial enforced the execution of their orders and decrees, and cannot be said to deprive the parties of their liberty or property without due process of law. ”

“ In the case referred to, the claims, as concerned those asserting them, were, on their part, tainted by no principle of illegality or immorality; on the contrary, were sustained by every principle of national law and natural justice, and nothing was wanting to render them recuperable, but a judicial tribunal competent to take cognizance thereof. ”