Bowen v. Johnson

97 F.2d 860, 1938 U.S. App. LEXIS 3880
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedJune 27, 1938
DocketNo. 8753
StatusPublished
Cited by6 cases

This text of 97 F.2d 860 (Bowen v. Johnson) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Bowen v. Johnson, 97 F.2d 860, 1938 U.S. App. LEXIS 3880 (9th Cir. 1938).

Opinion

STEPHENS, Circuit Judge.

This is an-appeal from an order of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California denying appellant a writ of habeas corpus.

The facts are not in dispute. Appellant is confined in the United States prison at Alcatraz Island, California, under restraint of defendant, the prison warden. He was indicted December 14, 1930; convicted of murder under the provisions of § 273 of the Penal Code of the United States, 18 U.S.C.A. § 452; sentenced to life imprisonment by the United States District Court of Georgia for the Northern Division; and transferred from an eastern prison to Alcatraz by order of the Attorney General.

The indictment, upon which appellant was tried and convicted, charged him, together with John E. Smith and Frank Bowen,- with shooting one Raymond King-ton to' death with a shot gun within the Rome Division of the Northern District of Georgia “within the jurisdiction of said court, and within a certain place and on certain lands reserved and acquired for the exclusive use of the United States and under exclusive jurisdiction thereof, and acquired by the United States by consent of the legislature of the State of Georgia, to-wit: Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Park, sometimes known as Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, in said State of Georgia * * *»

Appellant’s principal claim is that the District Court in which he was tried had no jurisdiction over the Park in which it is alleged the crime was committed for the reason that jurisdiction over such area could not constitutionally have been ceded to the United States and in fact was not so ceded, and that the indictment is defective in not alleging the details of such cession to the United States by the State of Georgia.

[861]*861In Archer v. Heath, 9 Cir., 1929, 30 F.2d 932, the court said:

“Where a judgment of a United States court is attacked directly by appeal, the judgment will be reversed, unless the jurisdictional facts appear some place in the record; but on a collateral attack, such as by habeas corpus, the judgment is presumptively valid, unless it appears affirmatively from the record that the court was without jurisdiction. This distinction has been repeatedly recognized by the Supreme Court, and it has been universally held that a petitioner is not entitled to a discharge on habeas corpus simply because the record of conviction fails to show affirmatively the jurisdiction of the court in which the conviction was had. Ex parte Cuddy, 131 U.S. 280, 9 S.Ct. 703, 33 L.Ed. 154; United States v. Pridgeon, 153 U.S. 48, 14 S.Ct. 746, 38 L.Ed. 631; Knewel v. Egan, 268 U.S. 442, 45 S.Ct. 522, 69 L.Ed. 1036.” (Page 933.)

In Walsh v. Archer, 9 Cir., 1934, 73 F.2d 197, an habeas corpus proceeding, the petitioner contended that the alleged murder was not committed on the high seas on board a vessel but rather within the State of California and within the jurisdiction of the courts of that State. This court said:

“Whether the location of the alleged crime was upon the high seas and exclusively within the jurisdiction of the United States required consideration of many facts and seriously controverted questions of law, including the alleged error involving the jurisdiction of the court.
“If petitioner’s contention be true, then every person serving a sentence for an offense alleged to have been committed on the high seas, within the limits of an Indian reservation, national forest, or elsewhere upon lands exclusively within the jurisdiction of the United States, could claim the right to a hearing on habeas corpus by alleging in his petition that the trial court was without jurisdiction, thus retrying on habeas corpus one of the issues of fact required in every such case to be passed upon by the trial court and the jury. * * * ” (Page 199.)

In that case the court decided that, where the lack of jurisdiction does not appear affirmatively on the face of the record, such matters of law and fact are for the determination of the trial court and cannot be questioned on habeas corpus.

The indictment, in the case before us, recites that the jurisdiction of the United States over appellant is predicated upon the fact that the alleged crime was committed “within a certain place and on certain lands reserved and acquired for the exclusive use of the United States and under exclusive jurisdiction thereof, and acquired by the United States by consent of the legislature of the State of Georgia, to-wit: Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Park * * The question then arises, “Does the record affirmatively show that the United States was without jurisdiction ?” Had the indictment gone no further than the phrase “and acquired by the United States by the consent of the legislature of the State of Georgia” and not added the words “to-wit: Chicka-mauga and Chattanooga National Park * * the question would undoubtedly have to be answered in the negative. It is argued that the addition of the latter phrase rendered the indictment fatally defective — it being asserted that the United States has no jurisdiction over the Chicka-mauga and Chattanooga National Park. But if the United States could constitutionally acquire jurisdiction over the Park, then the question whether in fact the United States did have such jurisdiction over the Park and over the appellant becomes a seriously controverted question of law and fact within the meaning of Walsh v. Archer, supra, and it is not within our province to question this on habeas corpus. The record in this case does not disclose a lack of jurisdiction in the United States unless it can be said that the United States is without power to exercise jurisdiction over a national park because lacking constitutional power to accept a cession thereof, with, of course, all of its incidents.

The recent case of Collins v. Yosemite Park & Curry Co., 58 S.Ct. 1009, 82 L.Ed.-, decided by the Supreme Court May 31, 1938, removes all doubt as to this problem. In that case the parties contested the validity of a cession of exclusive jurisdiction by the State of California to the United States over Yosemite National Park (reserving to the State certain powers to serve process and to tax). In answering the contention that the United States could not constitutionally accept such cession, the court said:

“There is no question about the power of the United States to exercise jurisdic[862]*862tion secured by cession, though this is not provided for by clause 17. [Of Art. 1, | 8 of the Federal Constitution, U.S.C.A. Const. Art. 1, § 8, cl. 17.] [Citing cases.] It has never been necessary, heretofore, for this Court to determine whether or not the' United States has the constitutional right to exercise jurisdiction over territory, within the geographical limits of a State, acquired for purposes other than those specified in Clause 17. It was raised but not decided in Arlington Hotel Co. v. Fant, 278 U.S. 439, 454, 49 S.Ct. 227, 73 L.Ed. 447. It was assumed without discussion in Yellowstone Park Transportation Co. v.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Schultz v. United States
155 F.2d 721 (Ninth Circuit, 1946)
State Ex Rel. Dufault v. Utecht
19 N.W.2d 706 (Supreme Court of Minnesota, 1945)
Head v. Hunter
141 F.2d 449 (Tenth Circuit, 1944)
Bowen v. United States
134 F.2d 845 (Fifth Circuit, 1943)
Bowen v. Johnston
306 U.S. 19 (Supreme Court, 1939)
Hatten v. Hudspeth
99 F.2d 501 (Tenth Circuit, 1938)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
97 F.2d 860, 1938 U.S. App. LEXIS 3880, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/bowen-v-johnson-ca9-1938.