Criminal jurisdiction

“ When a state court has entered upon the trial of a criminal case, under a statute not repugnant to the constitution of the United States, and has jurisdiction of the offense and of the accused, no mere error in the conduct of the trial should be made the basis of jurisdiction in a court of the United States to review the proceedings upon writ of habeas corpus. ”

“ Also: 'All criminal prosecutions and penal actions which may have arisen or which may arise before the change from a territorial to a state government, and which shall then be pending, shall be prosecuted to judgment and execution in the name of the state and in the court having jurisdiction thereof. ”

“ The third section gives the district courts of the United States exclusive "cognizance of all crimes and offenses committed against the provisions of this act," and concurrent jurisdiction with the circuit courts of the United States of all civil and criminal cases "affecting persons who are denied or can not enforce in the courts or judicial tribunals of the State or locality where they may be any of the rights secured to them by the first section." ”

“ Proceedings before a magistrate to commit a person to jail, or to hold him to bail, in order to secure his appearance to answer for a crime or offense which the magistrate has no jurisdiction himself to try, before the court in which he may be prosecuted and tried, are but preliminary to the prosecution, and are no more a commencement of the prosecution than is an arrest by an officer without a warrant, for a felony committed in his presence. ”

“ An offense cognizable in any court is cognizable in that court. If the offense be punishable by law, that court is competent to inflict the punishment. The judgment of such a tribunal has all the obligation which the judgment of any tribunal can have. To determine whether the offense charged in the indictment be legally punishable or not, is among the most unquestionable of its powers and duties. The decision of this question is the exercise of jurisdiction, whether the judgment be for or against the prisoner. ”

“ The penal code and the code of criminal procedure that have replaced it attempt to ensure that criminals are not able to evade the penalties provided for in the law but, at the same time, there is a stated guarantee against the arrest, trial, or conviction of innocent persons. ”

“ The only question before us is whether the police court had jurisdiction. A habeas corpus proceeding cannot be made to perform the function of a writ of error, and we are not concerned with the question whether the information was sufficient, or whether the acts set forth in the agreed statement constituted a crime, that is to say, whether the court properly applied the law, if it be found that the court had jurisdiction to try the issues and to render the judgment. ”

“ Any person, charged with crimes in any state, fleeing from justice to another, shall, on demand of the executive of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, and removed to the state having jurisdiction of the offence. ”

“ In all cases of penalty or punishment, it is contended, enforcement must depend upon the exertion of judicial power, either by civil or criminal process, since the distinction between judicial and administrative functions cannot be preserved consistently with the recognition of an administrative power to enforce a penalty without resort to judicial authority. ”

“ Our government comprises, therefore, not only a law-making branch and a law-enforcing branch, but also a LAW-INTERPRETING, OR JUDICIAL, branch—the courts.
THE RIGHTS OF ACCUSED PERSONS The Constitution guarantees justice to persons accused of violating the property rights, or other rights of citizens, by theft, fraud, or otherwise, as well as to the citizen who has been wronged. "In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed ... ”

“ It might be supposed that communities thus familiarized with the punishment of crime by public authority would rapidly develop a criminal jurisprudence by the simple and direct process of adding from time to time new crimes, perhaps in the order of their supposed enormity, to their catalogue of offenses. ”

“ The Constitution has made provision for the venue of criminal actions or prosecutions, and their nature cannot be altered by legislative enactment, so as to embrace the whole country in one vast district. A provision in a statute of this nature, by which it is possible to find an indictment and to have a trial at the most remote point from the actual commission of the offense, ought not to be approved as a compliance with the Constitution. ”

“ Be it enacted by the Authority aforesaid, That no Person or Persons, which shall be delivered or set at large upon any Habeas Corpus, shall at any time hereafter be again imprisoned or committed for the same Offence, by any Person or Persons whatsoever, other than by the legal Order and Process of such Court wherein he or they shall be bound by Recognizance to appear, or other Court having Jurisdiction of the Cause. ”

“ So, in the same act, a person, who, having knowledge of the commission of murder, or other felony, on the high seas, or within any fort, arsenal, dock-yard, magazine, or other place, or district of country within the sole and exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, shall conceal the same, &c. he shall be adjudged guilty of misprision of felony, and shall be adjudged to be imprisoned, &c. It is clear, that congress cannot punish felonies generally; and, of consequence, cannot punish misprision of felony. ”

“ 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. ”

“ We have, then, a statute with valid operation. This being established, there can be no question that it conferred upon the police court, by its express terms, jurisdiction of the offense, and that court tried and convicted the petitioner.
But it is insisted that the facts do not support the conviction. ”

“ Much complaint is made that persons are often discharged from arrest and imprisonment when their conviction, upon which such imprisonment was ordered, is perfectly correct; the excess of jurisdiction on the part of the court being in enlarging the punishment, or in enforcing it in a different mode or place than that provided by the law. ”

“ It is plain that such court has jurisdiction to render a particular judgment only when the offense charged is within the class of offenses placed by the law under its jurisdiction, and when, in taking custody of the accused, and in its modes of procedure to the determination of the question of his guilt or innocence, and in rendering judgment, the court keeps within the limitations prescribed by the law, customary or statutory. When the court goes out of these limitations, its action, to the extent of such excess, is void. ”

“ The Government's whole argument rests on the stark premise that Congress has left to the district attorney or the Attorney General the power to say whether the judge and jury must punish identical conduct as a felony or as a misdemeanor.
A basic principle of our criminal law is that the Government only prosecutes people for crimes under statutes passed by Congress which fairly and clearly define the conduct made criminal and the punishment which can be administered. ”

“ It is this: that the requirements of the constitution are fully met where the accused is accorded. at some stage of the prosecution against him, the right of trial by jury. Such right, it is argued, is sufficiently recognized in the following sections of the Revised Statutes of the District of Columbia, defining and regulating the power and jurisdiction of the police court: 'Sec. 1073. Any party deeming himself aggrieved by the judgment of the police court may appeal to the supreme court. ”

“ The previous assent and authority of the same assembly was necessary for every new law, whether of a general or temporary nature. 3. No man could be committed to prison but by a legal warrant specifying his offence; and by an usage nearly tantamount to constitutional right, he must be speedily brought to trial by means of regular sessions of gaol-delivery. 4. The fact of guilt or innocence on a criminal charge was determined in a public court, and in the county where the offence was alleged to have occurred, by a jury of twelve men, from whose unanimous verdict no appeal could be made. ”

“ The sifting of criminal charges against people is for the grand jury or for judges or magistrates and for them alone under our Constitution. In my view no other accusatory body can be used that withholds the rights of confrontation and cross-examination from those accused of federal crimes. ”

“ The law, therefore, makes it a positive condition that before any one, whether he be citizen or officer, may arrest another for a felony not committed in his presence the felony must in fact have been committed. Thus the right to apprehend a suspected wrong-doer is invoked at the peril of him who seeks to exercise it. If no felony has been committed the arrest is illegal. ”

“ O'Connell, 8 Gray, 464, it was held that a mere grant of 'exclusive jurisdiction' to a police court over certain offenses did not exclude the authority of justices of the peace to receive complaints and issue warrants returnable before that court. ”

“ In applying the sanction of physical force to the rules of right, the tribunals of the state may act in one or other of two different ways. They may either enforce rights, or punish wrongs. In other words, they may either compel a man to perform the duty which he owes, or they 71may punish him for having failed to perform it. Hence the distinction between civil and criminal justice. The former consists in the enforcement of rights, the latter in the punishment of wrongs. ”

“ Our criminal code, artificial and indiscriminating as it is, is the growth of ages and is the result of the notion that society ought to take vengeance upon the criminal, at least that it ought to punish him, and that the judge, the interpreter of the criminal law, was not only the proper person to determine the guilt of the accused, by the aid of the jury, but was the sole person to judge of the amount of punishment he should receive for his crime. ”

“ The cases before us raise questions which go to the roots of our concepts of American criminal jurisprudence: the restraints society must observe consistent with the Federal Constitution in prosecuting individuals for crime. More specifically, we deal with the admissibility of statements obtained from an individual who is subjected to custodial police interrogation and the necessity for procedures which assure that the individual is accorded his privilege under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution not to be compelled to incriminate himself. ”

“ The procedure in penal cases including the administration of punishment, in civil cases and in matters of voluntary jurisdiction, is to be simplified and expedited, by eliminating all dispensable measures and by utilizing all available manpower, as far as it is compatible with the purpose of the procedure. In particular, in penal cases the enforcement of the indictment by the offended party, and the formal decree of the court opening, the trial will be eliminated; the authority of the local court in penal matters is to be enlarged, and the admissibility of writs of punishment to be extended. ”

“ But we repeat, if a court martial has no jurisdiction over the subject-matter of the charge it has been convened to try, or shall inflict a punishment forbidden by the law, though its sentence shall be approved by the officers having a revisory power of it, civil courts may, on an action by a party aggrieved by it, inquire into the want of the court's jurisdiction, and give him redress. ”

“ No one may be removed against his will from the jurisdiction of the tribunal in which he has a right to be tried. General confiscation of the property of a person adjudged guilty may not be imposed as a penalty for any offense. Save in exceptional cases, specified by law, or when in the opinion of the judge public order and morals forbid, the sessions of all courts are required to be public. Judgments must be pronounced in public session. ”

“ Indisputably under our constitutional system the right to try offenses against the criminal laws, and, upon conviction, to impose the punishment provided by law, is judicial, and it is equally to be conceded that, in exerting the powers vested in them on such subject, courts inherently possess ample right to exercise reasonable, that is, judicial, discretion to enable them to wisely exert their authority. ”

“ Public prosecutors have the right to enter appeals and suits, the right of legal intervention in the course of judicial and administrative proceedings, the right to institute criminal proceedings and the right to file a demand for the defense of legality against valid resolutions of law courts and administrative organs. ”

“ It countenances no such thing as giving to the State tribunals cognizance of these crimes and offences.
The twenty-sixth section of the Crimes Act of March 3d, 1825 (4 Stat. at L., 122) , relied upon by the defendant in error, is only a saving of jurisdiction to the States, under the laws thereof, over offences made punishable by that act. It does not profess to confer jurisdiction, but only to leave with the States any jurisdiction which, under their laws, they might rightfully have. ”