Brown v. United States

171 U.S. 631, 19 S. Ct. 56, 43 L. Ed. 312, 1898 U.S. LEXIS 1625
CourtSupreme Court of the United States
DecidedOctober 24, 1898
Docket249, 250
StatusPublished
Cited by11 cases

This text of 171 U.S. 631 (Brown v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of the United States primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Brown v. United States, 171 U.S. 631, 19 S. Ct. 56, 43 L. Ed. 312, 1898 U.S. LEXIS 1625 (1898).

Opinion

Mr. Justice Shiras,

after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court.

By the act of Congress approved March 1, 1889, c. 333, 25 Stat. 783, there was established a United States court for the Indian Territory. The act conferred no jurisdiction over felonies, but by the fifth section exclusive original jurisdiction was conferred over all- offences against the laws of the United States committed within the Indian Territory, not punishable by death or by imprisonment at hard labor. Jurisdiction was conferred in all civil cases between citizens of the United States who are residents of the Indian Territory where the value of the thing in controversy shall amount to one hundred dollars or more. The final judgment Or decree of the court, where the value of the matter in. dispute, exclusive of costs, exceeds one thousand dollars, may be reviewed and reversed or affirmed in the Supreme Court of the United States upon writ of error or appeal, in the same manner and under the same regulations as the final judgments and decrees of a Circuit Court.

On March 1, 1895, Congress passed an act, c. 145, 28' Stat: 693, dividing the Indian Territory into three judicial districts, and providing for the appointment of two additional judges. This act extended the jurisdiction of the United States court in said Territory to capital cases and other infamous crimes, the jurisdiction over which had theretofore been vested in the United States courts at Fort Scott, Kansas, Fort Smith, Arkansas, and Paris, Texas, and provided that all such offences should be prosecuted in the United States court in the Indian Territory after the first day of September, 1896.

The eleventh section is as follows:

“That the judges of said court shall constitute a court of appeals, to be presided over by the judge oldest in commission *634 as chief justicé of said court. And said court shall have such jurisdiction and powers in said Indian Territory and such general superintending control over the courts thereof as is conferred upon the Supreme Court of Arkansas over the courts thereof by the laws of said State, as provided by chapter forty of Mansfield’s Digest of the Laws of Arkansas, and the provisions of said chapter, so far as they relate to the jurisdiction and powers of said Supreme Court of Arkansas as to appeals and writs of error, and as to the trial and decision of cases, so far as they are'applicable, shall be, and they are hereby, extended over and put in force in the Indian Territory;
“ And appeals and writs of error from said court in said districts to said appellate court, in criminal cases, shall be prosecuted under the provisions of chapter forty-six of Mansfield’s Digest, by this act put in force in the Indian Territory.”

These enactments clearly provide that writs of error in criminal cases shall be taken to the appellate court of the United States for the Indian Territory, and dispose of the question before us, unless there are other provisions óf the acts of Congress which prevent such a conclusion.

The counsel for defendants in error contend that the act of February 6, 1889, c. 113, 25 Stat. 655, gave to the Supreme Court the right to review. The sixth section of that act is in the following words:

“ That hereafter, in all cases of conviction of crime the pun-, ishment of which provided by law is death, tried before any court of the United States, the final judgment of such court against the respondent shall, upon the application of the respondent, be reexamined, reversed or affirmed by the Supreme Court of the United States upon a writ of error, under such rules and regulations as said court may prescribe.”

It will be observed that when this law was passed the United States court for the Indian Territory did not possess jurisdiction" in capital cases. That jurisdiction was subsequently conferred. But, even if it be conceded that the provisions of the act of February 6, 1889, might have attached or become applicable to the judgments of the United States court for the Indian Territory when jurisdiction in capital cases was ex *635 tended to that court, the intention of Congress is manifested to have been otherwise by the provision above cited from-the act of March 1, 1895, whereby it is provided that writs of error in capital cases shall be taken to the Court of Appeals of the United States for the Indian Territory.

This court had occasion to consider the effect of the act of February 6, 1889, in respect to the judgments of the Supreme Court' of the District of Columbia in capital cases, in the case of Cross v. United States, 145 U. S. 571, and it was there said :

“ It is contended on behalf of the Government that the writ of error will not lie because the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia is not a court of the United States, within the intent and meaning of the section. McAllister v. United States, 141 U. S. 174, is cited with the decision referred to therein, as sustaining that view, but it is to be remembered that that case referred to territorial courts only; and' moreover, if the. disposal of the motion turned on this point, the words, ‘ any court of the United States,’ are so comprehensive that, used as they are in connection with convictions subject to the penalty of death, the conclusion might be too technical that Congress intended to distinguish between courts of one class and of the other. But the difficulty' with the section is that it manifestly does not contemplate the allowance of a writ of error to any appellate tribunal, but only to review the final judgment of the court before which the respondent was tried, where such judgment could not otherwise be reviewed by writ of error or appeal. It is the final judgment of a trial court that may be reexamined upon the application of the respondent, and it is to that court that the cause is to be remanded, and by that court that the judgment of this court is to be carried into execution. The obvious object was to secure a. review by some other court than that which passed upon the case at nisi jprius. Such review by two other courts was not within the intention, as the judiciary act of March 3, 1891, shows. This is made still clearer by the further provision that no such writ of error ‘ shall be sued out or granted unless a petition therefor shall be filed with the clerk of the court in which the trial shail have been had during the same term or within such *636 time, not exceeding sixty days next after the expiration of the term of the court at which the trial shall have been had, as the court may for cause allow by. order entered of record.’ This language is entirely inapplicable to the prosecution of a writ of error to the judgment of an appellate tribunal affirming the judgment of the trial court. And the case before us shows this.”

It is true that in the present cases the writs of error were sued out directly to the trial court, whereas in the case of Cross

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Bluebook (online)
171 U.S. 631, 19 S. Ct. 56, 43 L. Ed. 312, 1898 U.S. LEXIS 1625, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/brown-v-united-states-scotus-1898.