Ex parte Ah Oi

13 Haw. 534, 1901 Haw. LEXIS 28
CourtHawaii Supreme Court
DecidedAugust 26, 1901
StatusPublished
Cited by10 cases

This text of 13 Haw. 534 (Ex parte Ah Oi) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Hawaii Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ex parte Ah Oi, 13 Haw. 534, 1901 Haw. LEXIS 28 (haw 1901).

Opinions

OPINION OF THE COURT BY

FREAR, C.J.

(Galbraith, J., dissenting.)

This is an appeal from an order discharging the petitioner in habeas corpus proceedings on the ground that the indictment cm which he was convicted was not found by a grand jury and that the verdict upon which he was sentenced was not unanimous.

[535]*535The prisoner had been indicted, tried, convicted and sentenced at the August Term, 1899, of the Circuit Court- of the Eirst Circuit, that is, during the period between the annexation of these islands to the United States by the Joint Resolution of Congress of July 7, 1898, and the establishment of a Territorial government here on June 14, 1900, by the Act of April 30, 1900. His offense was burglary; his sentence, imprisonment for ten years. The indictment was found a true bill by the Circuit J udge, as formerly required by Hawaiian law. The verdict was rendered by ten of the twelve jurors, as formerly permitted by Hawaiian law. He was discharged in the habeas corpus proceedings on the supposition that the provisions of Hawaiian law which had for the previous sixty years permitted indictments to be found by' judges of courts of record and verdicts to be rendered by nine of twelve jurors were rendered invalid upon the annexation of these islands to the United States.

1. This is one of several appeals in habeas corpus cases which were heard in this Court at the same time because they involved similar questions. Since this ease was submitted, counsel for the petitioner have called -our attention to the fact that in the criminal cases in which the petitioners in the other habeas corpus cases were sentenced, Mr. Justice Perry, now a member of this court, was the Circuit Judge who found the indictments, presided at the trials and pronounced the sentences, and it is suggested that he is disqualified from sitting on the appeals or tailing part in the decisions in those cases by reason of the provision in Section 84 of the Organic Act that, “No judge shall sit on an appeal, or new trial, in any case, in which he may have1 given a previous judgment,” and that he is disqualified from sitting in this case also, because all these cases were heard at the same time. These cases, though heard at the same time‘for convenience, since they involved similar questions of law, are separate and distinct cases,' and the fact, if fact it is, that a member of the court is disqualified by the provision in question from sitting in other cases in which the same questions of law are involved, would not disqualify him from sitting in this case. Of course, [536]*536the mere fact that he had previously expressed an opinion in another case on the questions of law involved would not disqualify him. If that were so we should all be disqualified, not only in all these cases but perhaps in half the cases that come to this court. Whether Mr. Justice Perry is disqualified from sitting in the other eases, will be considered in the decision of those cases.

2. It is strenuously contended that no appeal lies in habeas corpus cases. No doubt judgments in such cases are usually held not reviewable by appeal or writ of error in the absence of statute. Whether appeals may be taken in such cases as well as in other cases under a general statute relating to appeals, or whether such cases must be specifically mentioned are questions upon which different views have been entertained. There is also some difference of opinion as to the advisability of allowing appeals in such cas.es. On the one hand it is urged that the remedy by habeas corpus was designed to be speedy and that it should be so in cases involving the right of personal liberty. On the other hand it is urged that questions of the gravest importance may be presented in such cases and that to allow, any person imprisoned for crime after a careful trial resulting in a verdict by a jury, a sentence by the court, and after an affiruianee by the Supreme Oourt, to obtain a discharge whenever he can find any judge who thinks that the proceedings were invalid, would be dangerous in the extreme. The Supreme Court of Arkansas in Ex parte Jackson, 45 Ark. 160, quoted in 9 Enc. PI. & Pr. 1073, went so far as to say that, “It would be a disgrace to any government, if the decision of such matters were left to the arbitrary will of one man without appeal or means of revision.” No better illustration of the hazard of such a practice is needed than these very cases and the circumstances connected with them, which need not be enlarged upon. But it is needless to consider at length the question of policy in this matter. That is a question for the legislative branch of the government. Suffice it to say that as matter of fact statutes have been enacted in England, Canada, most of the States and by the Congress of the United States allowing appeals in habeas corpus cases. That is nerhaps the best [537]*537evidence of the trend of opinion on this subject in recent times when conditions are so different from what they were several centuries ago in England. Some of these statutes allow appeals in certain classes of cases'only, some confer the right apon the petitioner only. But most contain no limitations. Some courts hold that an appeal or writ of error lies in cases of this kind under a general statute, others that cases of this kind must be expressly mentioned. It will serve no useful purpose to review the cases, Many of them are collected in Church, Hab. Corp., 2nd Ed., Sec. 389b et seq. and 9 Enc. PL & Pr. 1072 et seq., and notes. Brief reference will be made, however, to a few cases decided by the Supreme Court of the United States. Under a statute which provides generally for appeals in habeas corpus cases without specifying by whom, an appeal may be taken from an order discharging a prisoner as well as from an order remanding him. In re Neagle, 135 U. S. 1; Crowley v. Christensen, 137 U. S. 86. Under a statute which provides for writs of error from decisions of the highest courts of the States without referring to habeas corpus eases, a writ of error lies- in a case in which a prisoner has been ordered discharged on habeas corpus. Ableman v. Booth and United States v. Booth, 21 How. 506; Tarple’s Case, 13 Wall. 397. In a ease in which the statute gives a Circuit Court of Appeal final jurisdiction and provides for no appeal or writ of error to the Supreme Court, an order made by the former in a habeas corpus case may be reviewed by the latter on certiorari, and apparently under another section of the same statute which provides for an appeal from a Circuit Court to the Supreme Court without referring to habeas corpns cases an appeal would lie (though it should be stated that there is another statute not referred to by the court which does expressly provide for appeals from Circuit Courts in habeas corpus cases). Lau Ow Bew, 144 U. S. 47.

Let us now turn to our own statutes and practice, upon which, after all, the solution of this question depends. These are appeals from orders made by a Circuit Judge at Chambers. The Act to Reorganize the Judiciary Department (Laws of 1892, [538]*538Oh. 57) provides in Section 37 (Civ. L., Sec.

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13 Haw. 534, 1901 Haw. LEXIS 28, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ex-parte-ah-oi-haw-1901.