Frank v. Mangum

237 U.S. 309, 35 S. Ct. 582, 59 L. Ed. 969, 1915 U.S. LEXIS 1338

• Court: Supreme Court of the United States
• Decided: April 19, 1915
• Docket: 775
• Status: Published

Opinions

Mr. Justice Pitney,

after making the foregoing statement, delivered the opinion of the court.

The points raised by the appellant may be reduced to the following:

(1) It is contended that the disorder in and about the court-room during the trial and up to and at the reception of the verdict amounted to mob domination, that not only thé jury but the presiding judge succumbed to it, and that this in effect wrought a dissolution of the court, so that the proceedings were cor'am non judice.

. (2) That Frank’s right to be present during the entire trial until and at the return of the verdict was an essential part of the right of trial by jury, which could not be waived either by himself or his counsel.

(3) That his presence was so essential to a proper hearing that the reception of thé verdict in his absence, and in the absence of his counsel, without his consent or authority, wás a departure from the due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, sufficient to bring about a loss, of jurisdiction of the trial court and to render the verdict and judgment absolute nullities.

(4) That the failure of Frank and his counsel, upon the first motion for a new trial, to allege as a ground of that motion the known fact of Frank’s absénce at the reception of the verdict, or to raise any jurisdictional question based upon it, did not deprive him of the right to after-wards attack the judgment as a nullity, as he did in the motion to set .aside the verdict.

(5) And that the ground upon which the Supreme Court of Georgia rested its decision affirming the denial of the latter motion (83 S. E. Rep. 645), — viz., that the objection based upon Frank’s absence when the verdict was rendered was available on the motion for new trial and under proper practice ought to have been then taken, and because not then taken could not be relied upon as a ground for setting- aside the verdict as-a nullity, — was itself, in conflict with the Constitution of the United States because equivalent in effect to an ex post facto law, since, as is said, it departs from the practice settled by previous decisions of the same court.

In dealing with these contentions, we should have in mind the nature and extent of the duty that is imposed upon a Federal court on application for the writ of habeas corpus under § 753, Rev. Stat. Under the terms of that section, in order to entitle the present appellant to the relief sought, .it must appear that he is held in custody in violation of the Constitution of the United States. Rogers v. Peck, 199 U. S. 425, 434. Moreover, if he is held in custody by reason of his conviction upon a criminal charge before a court having plenary jurisdiction over the subject-matter or offense, the place where it was committed, and the person of the prisoner, it results from the nature of the writ itself that he cannot have relief on habeas corpus. Mere errors in point of law, however serious, committed by a criminal court in the exercise of its jurisdiction over a case properly subject to its cognizance, cannot be reviewed by habeas corpus. That writ cannot be employed as a substitute for the writ of error. Ex parte Parks, 93 U. S. 18, 21; Ex parte Siebold, 100 U. S. 371, 375; Ex parte Royall, 117 U. S. 241, 250; In re Frederich, Pet’r, 149 U. S. 70, 75; Baker v. Grice, 169 U. S. 284, 290; Tinsley v. Anderson, 171 U. S. 101, 105; Markuson v. Boucher, 175 U. S. 184.

As to the “due process of law” that is required by the Fourteenth Amendment, it is perfectly well settled that a criminal prosecution in the courts of a State, based upon, a law not in itself repugnant to the Federal Constitution, and conducted according to the settled course of judicial proceedings as established by the law of the State, so long as it includes notice, and a hearing, or an opportunity to be heard, before a court of competent jurisdiction, according to established modes of procedure, is “due process” in the constitutional sense. Walker v. Sauvinet, 92 U. S. 90, 93; Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 535; Andrews v. Swartz, 156 U. S. 272, 276; Bergemann v. Backer, 157 U. S. 655, 659; Rogers v. Peck, 199 U. S. 425, 434; Drury v. Lewis, 200 U. S. 1, 7; Felts v. Murphy, 201 U. S. 123, 129; Howard v. Kentucky, 200 U. S. 164.

It is, therefore,, conceded by counsel for appellant that in the present case we may-'not review irregularities or erroneous rulings upon the trial, however serious, and that the writ of habeas corpus will lie only in case the judgment under which the prisoner is detained is shown to be absolutely void for want of jurisdiction in the court that pronounced it, either because such jurisdiction was absent at the beginning or because it was lost in the course of the proceedings. And since no question is made respecting the original jurisdiction of the trial court, the contention is- and must be that by the conditions that surrounded the trial, and the absence of defendant when the verdict was rendered, the court was deprived of jurisdiction to receive the verdict and pronounce the sentence.

But it would be clearly erroneous to confine the inquiry to the proceedings and judgment of the trial court. The laws of the State of Georgia (as will appear from decisions elsewhere cited), provide for an appeal in criminal cases to the Supreme Court of that State upon divers grounds, including such as those upon- which it is here asserted that the trial court was lacking in jurisdiction. And while the Fourteenth Amendment does not require -that a State shall provide for an appellate review in criminal cases (McKane v. Durston, 153 U. S. 684, 687; Andrews v. Swartz, 156 U. S. 272, 275; Rogers v. Peck, 199 U. S. 425, 435; Reetz v. Michigan, 188 U. S. 505, 508), it is perfectly obvious that where such an appeal is provided for, and the prisoner has had the benefit of it, the proceedings in the appellate tribunal are to be regarded as a part of the process of law under which he is held in custody by the State, and to .be considered in determining any question of 'alleged deprivation of his life or liberty contrary to the Fourteenth Amendment.

In fact, such questions as are here presented under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, though sometimes discussed as if involving merely the jurisdiction of some -court or other tribunal, in a. larger and more accurate sense involve the power and authority of "the State itself. The prohibition is addressed-to the State; if it be violated, it makes no difference in a court of the United States by what agency of the State this is done/ so, if a violation be threatened by one agency of the State but prevented by another agency of higher authority, there, is no violation by the State. It is for the State to determine what courts or other tribunals shall be established for the trial of offenses against its criminal laws, and to define their several jurisdictions and authority as between themselves. And the question whether a State is depriving a prisoner of his liberty without due process of law, where the offense for which he is prosecuted is based upon a law that does no violence to the Federal Constitution, cannot ordinarily be determined, with, fairness to the State, until the conclusion of the course of justice in its courts. Virginia v. Rives, 100 U. S. 313, 318; Civil Rights Cases, 109 U. S. 3, 11; McKane v. Durston, 153 U. S. 684, 687; Dreyer v. Illinois, 187 U. S. 71, 83-84; Reetz v. Michigan, 188 U. S. 505, 507; Carfer v. Caldwell, 200 U. S. 293, 297; Waters-Pierce Oil Co. v. Texas (No. 1), 212 U. S. 86, 107; In re Frederich, Petitioner, 149 U. S. 70, 75; Whitten v. Tomlinson, 160 U. S. 231, 242; Baker v. Grice, 169 U. S. 284, 291; Minnesota v. Brundage, 180 U. S. 499, 503, Urquhart v. Brown, 205 U. S. 179; 182.

It is, indeed, settled by repeated decisions of this court that where it is made to appear to a court of the United States that an applicant for habeas corpus is in the custody of a state officer in the ordinary co.urse of a-crimmaT prosecution, -under a law of the State not in itself repugnant to the Federal Constitution, the writ, in the absence of very special circumstances, ought not to be issued until the state prosecution has reached its conclusion, and not even then until the Federal questions arising upon the record have been brought before this court upon writ of error. Ex parte Royall, 117 U. S. 241, 251; In re Frederich, Petitioner, 149 U. S. 70, 77; Whitten v. Tomlinson, 160 U. S. 231, 242; Baker v. Grice, 169 U. S. 284, 291; Tinsley v. Anderson, 171 U. S; 101, 105; Markuson v. Boucher, 175 U. S. 184; Urquhart v. Brown, 205 U. S. 179. And see Henry v. Henkel, 235 U. S. 219, 228. Such cases as In re Loney, 134 U. S. 372, 376; and In re Neagle, 135 U. S. 1; are recognized as exceptional.

It follows as a logical consequence that where, as here, a criminal prosecution has proceeded through all the courts of the State, including the appellate as well as the trial court, the result' of the appellate review cannot be ignored when afterwards the prisoner applies for his release on the ground of a deprivation of Federal rights sufficient to oust the State of its jurisdiction to proceed to judgment and execution against him. This is not a mere matter of comity, as seems to be supposed.. The rule stands upon a much higher plane, for it arises out of the very nature and ground of the inquiry into the proceedings of the state tribunals, and touches closely upon the relations between the state and the Federal governments. As was declared by this court in Ex parte Royall, 117 U. S. 241, 252 — applying in a habeas corpus case what was said in Covell v. Heyman, 111 U. S. 176, 182, a case of conflict of jurisdiction: — “The forbearance which courts of coordinate jurisdiction, administered under a single system, exercise towards each other, whereby conflicts are avoided, by avoiding interference with the process of each other, is a principle of comity, with perhaps no higher sanction than the utility which comes from concord; but between state courts and those of the United States it is something more. It is a principle! of right and of law, and, therefore, of necessity.” And see In re Tyler, Petitioner, 149 U. S. 164, 186.

It is objected by counsel for appellee that the alleged loss of jurisdiction cannot be shown by evidence outside of the record; that where a prisoner is held under a judgment of conviction passed by a court having jurisdiction of the subject-matter, and the indictment against him states the case and is based upon a valid existing'law, habeas corpus is not an available remedy, save for want of jurisdiction appearing upon the face of the record of the court wherein he was convicted. The rule at the common law, and under the act 31 Car. II, c. 2, and other acts of Parliament prior to that of July 1, 1816 (56 Geo. III, c. 100; § 3), seems to have been that a showing in the return to a writ of habeas corpus that the prisoner was held under final process based upon a judgment or decree of a court of competent jurisdiction, closed the inquiry. So it was held, under the judiciary act of 1789 (ch. 20, § 14, 1 Stat. 73, 81), in Ex parte Watkins, 3 Pet. 193, 202. And the rule seems to have been the same under the act of March 2, 1833 (ch. 57, § 7, 4 Stat. 632, 634), and that of Aug. 29, 1842 (ch. 257, 5 Stat. 539). But when Congress, in the,act of February 5, 1867 (ch. 28, 14 Stat. 385), extended the writ of habeas corpus to all cases of persons restrained of their liberty in violation of the Constitution or a law or treaty óf the United States, procedural regulations were included, now found in Rev. Stat., §§ 754-761. These require that the application for the writ shall be made by complaint in writing signed by the applicant and verified by his oath, setting forth the facts concerning his detention, in.whose custody he is detained, and by virtue of what claim or authority, if known; require that the return shall certify the true cause of the detention; and provide that the prisoner may under oath deny any of the facts set forth in the return or allege other material facts, and that the court shall proceed in a summary way to determine the facts by hearing testimony and arguments, and thereupon dispose of the party as law and justice require. The efféct is to substitute for the bare legal review that seems to have been the limit of júdicial authority under the common-law practice, and under the act of 31 Car. II, c. 2, a more searching investigation, in •which the applicant, is put upon his oath to set forth the truth of the matter respecting the causes of his detention, and the court, upon determining the? actual facts, is to “dispose of the party as law and. justice require.”

There being ño doubt of the -authority of the Congress to thus liberalize the common law procedure on habeas corpus in order to safeguard the liberty of all persons within the jurisdiction of' the United States against infringement through any violation of the Constitution or a law or treaty established thereunder, it results .that under the sections cited a prisoner in custody pursuant to the final judgment, of a state court of criminal jurisdiction may have a judicial inquiry in a court of the United States into the very truth and substance of the causes of his detention, although it may become necessary to look behind and beyond the record of his conviction to a sufficient extent to test the jurisdiction of the state court to proceed to judgment against him. Cuddy, Petitioner, 131 U. S. 280, 283, 286; In re Mayfield, 141 U. S. 107, 116; Whitten v. Tomlinson, 160 U. S. 231, 242; In re Watts and Sachs, 190 U. S. 1, 35.

In the light, then, of these established rules and principles: that the due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment has regard to substance of right, and not to matters of form or. procedure; that it is open to the courts of the United States upon an application for a writ of habeas corpus to look beyond forms and inquire into the very substañce of the matter, to the extent of deciding whether the prisoner has been deprived of his liberty without due process of law, and for this purpose to inquire into jurisdictional facts, whether they appear upon the record or not; that an investigation into the case of a prisoner held.in custody by a State on convietioñ of a criminal offense must take into consideration the entire course of proceedings in the courts of the State, and not merely a single step in those proceedings; and that it is incumbent upon the prisoner to set forth in his application a sworn statement of the facts concerning his detention and by virtue of what claim or authority he is detained; we proceed to consider the questions presented.

1. And first, the question of the- disorder and hostile sentiment that are said to have influenced the trial court and jury to an extent amounting to mob domination.

The District Court having considered the case upon the face of the petition, we must do the same, treating it as if demurred to by the sheriff. There is no doubt of the jurisdiction to issue the writ of habeas corpus. The question is as to the propriety of issuing it in the present case. Under § 755, Rev. Stat., it was the duty of the court to refuse the writ if it appeared from the petition itself that appellant was not entitled to it. And see Ex parte Watkins, 3 Pet. 193, 201; Ex parte Milligan, 4 Wall. 2, 110; Ex parte Terry, 128 U. S. 289, 301.

Now the obligation resting upon us, as upon the District Court, to look through the form and into the very heart and substance of the matter, applies as well to the averments. of the petition as to the proceedings which the petitioner attacks. We must regard not any single clause or paragraph, but the entire petition, and the exhibits that are made a part of it. Thus, the petition contains a narrative of disorder, hostile manifestations, and uproar, which, if it stood alone, and were to be taken as true, may be conceded to show an environment inconsistent with a fair trial and an impartial verdict. But to consider this as standing alone is to take a wholly superficial view. The narrative has no proper place in a petition addressed to a court of the United States except as it may tend to throw light upon the question whether the State of Georgia, haying regard to the entire course of the proceedings, in the appellate as well as in the trial court, is depriving appellant of his liberty and intending to deprive him of his life without due process of law. Dealing with the narrative, then, in its essence, and in its relation to the context, it clearly appears to be only a reiteration of allegations that appellant had a right to submit, and did submit, first to the trial court, and afterwards to the Supreme Court of the State, as a ground for avoiding the consequences of the trial; that the allegations were considered by those courts, successively, at times and places and under circumstances wholly apart from the atmosphere of the trial, and free from any suggestion of mob domination, or the like; and that the facts were examined by those courts not only upon the affidavits and exhibits submitted in behalf of the prisoner which are embodied in his present petition as a part of his sworn account of the causes of his detention, but also upon rebutting affidavits submitted in behalf of the State and which, for reasons not explained, he has not included in the petition. As appears from the prefatory statement, the allegations of disorder were found by both of the state courts to be groundless except in a few particulars as to which the courts ruled that they were irregularities not harmful in fact to defendant and therefore insufficient in law to avoid the verdict. 141 Georgia, 243, 280. And it was because the defendant was concluded by that finding that the Supreme Court upon the subsequent motion to set aside the verdict declined to again consider those allegations. 83 S. E. Rep. 645, 655.

Whatever question is raised about the jurisdiction of the trial court, no doubt is suggested but that the Supreme Court had full jurisdiction to determine the matters of fact and the questions of law arising out of this alleged disorder; nor is there any reason to suppose that it did not fairly and justly perform its duty. It is not easy to see why appellant is not, upon general principles, bound by its decision. It is a fundamental principle of jurisprudence, arising from the very nature of courts of justice and the objects for which they are established, that a' question of fact or of law distinctly put in issue and directly determined by a court of Competent jurisdiction cannot afterwards be disputed between the same partiés. Southern Pacific Railroad v. United States, 168 U. S. 1, 48. The principle is as applicable to the decisions of criminal courts as to those of civil jurisdiction.- As to its application in habeas corpus cases, with respect to decisions by such courts of the facts pertaining to the jurisdiction ever the prisoner, see Ex parte Terry, 128 U. S. 289, 305, 310; Ex parte Columbia George, 144 Fed. Rep. 985, 986.

However, it is not necessary, for the purposes of the present case, to invoke the doctrine of res adjudicate, and, in view of the impropriety of limiting in the least dejgree the authority of the courts of the United States in investigating an alleged violation by a State of the due process of law guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment, we put out of view for the present the suggestion that even the questions of fact bearing upon the jurisdiction of the trial court could be conclusively determined against the prisoner by the decision of the state court of last resort.

But this does not mean that that decision may be ignored or disregarded. To do this, as we have already pointed out, would be not merely to disregard comity, but ’ to ignore the essential question before us, which is not the guilt or innocence of the prisoner, or the truth of any particular fact asserted by him, but whether the State, taking into view the entire course of its procedure, has deprived him of due process of law. This familiar phrase does not mea® that the operations of the state government shall be conducted without error or fault in any particular case, .nor that the Federal courts may substitute their judgment for that of the state courts, or exercise any general réview over their proceedings, but only that the fundamental rights of the prisoner shall not be taken from him arbitrarily or without the right to be heard according to the usual course of law in such cases.

We of course agree that if a trial is in fact dominated by a mob, so that the jury is intimidated and the trial judge yields, and so that there is an actual interference with the course bf justice, there is, in that court, a departure from due process of law in the proper sense of that term. And if the State, supplying no corrective process, carries into execution a judgment of death or imprisonment-based upon a verdict thus produced by mob domination, the State deprives the accused of his life or liberty without due process of law.

But the State may supply such corrective process as to it seems proper. Georgia has adopted the familiar procedure of a motion for a new trial followed by an appeal to its Supreme Court, not confined to the mere record of conviction but going at large, and upon evidence adduced outside of that record, into the question whether the processes of justice have been interfered with in the trial court. Repeated instances are reported of verdicts and judgments set aside and new trials granted for disorder or mob violence interfering with thé prisoner’s right to a fair trial. Myers v. State, 97 Georgia 76 (5), 99; Collier v. State, 115 Georgia, 803.

Such an appeal was accorded to the prisoner in the present case [Frank v. State, 141 Georgia, 243 (16), 280], in a manner and under, circumstances already stated, and the Supreme Court, upon a full review, decided appellant’s allegations of fact, so far as matters now material are concerned, to be unfounded. Owing to considerations already adverted to (arising not out of comity merely, but out of the very right of the matter to be decided, in view of the relations existing between the States and the Federal Government), we hold that such a determination of the facts as was thus made by the court of last resort of Georgia respecting the alleged interference with the trial through disorder and manifestations of hostile sentiment cannot in this collateral inquiry be treated as a nullity, but must be taken as setting forth the truth of the matter, certainly until some reasonable ground is shown for an inference that the court which rendered it either 'was wanting in jurisdiction, or at least erred in the exercise of its jurisdiction; and that the mere assertion by the prisoner that the facts of the matter are other than the state court upon full investigation determined them to be will not be deemed sufficient to raise an issue respecting the correctness of that determination; especially not, where the very evidence upon which the determination was rested is withheld by him who attacks the finding.

It is argued that if in fact there was disorder such as to cause a loss of jurisdiction in the trial court, jurisdiction could not be restored by any decision of the Supreme Court. This, we think, embodies more than one error of reasoning. It regards a part only of the judicial proceedings, instead of considering the entire process of law. It also begs the question of the existence of such disorder as to cause a loss of jurisdiction in the trial epurt; which should not be assumed, in the face of the decision of the reviewing court, without showing some adequate ground for disregarding that decision. And these errors grow out of the initial error of treating appellant’s narrative' of disorder as the whole matter, instead of reading it in connection with the context. The rule of law that in ordinary cases requires a prisoner to exhaust his remedies within the State before corning to the courts of the United States for redress would lose the greater part of its salutary force if the prisoner’s mere allegations were to stand the same in law after , as before the state courts had passed judgment upon them.

We are very far from intimating that manifestations of public sentiment, or any otherform of disorder, calculated to influence court or jury; are matters to be lightly treated. The decisions of the Georgia courts in this and other cases show that such disorder is repressed, where practicable, by the direct intervention of the trial court and the officers under its command; and that other means familiar to the common-law practice, such as postponing the trial, changing the venue, and granting a new trial, are liberally resorted to in order to protect persons accused of crime in the right to a fair trial by an impartial jury. The argument for appellant amounts to saying that tips is not enough; that by force of the “due process of law” provision of the Fourteenth Amendment, when the first attempt at a fair trial is rendered abortive through outside interference, the State, instead of allowing a new trial under better auspices, must abandon jurisdiction over the accused and refrain from further inquiry into the question of his guilt.

To establish this doctrine would, in a very practical sense, impair the power of the States to repress and punish crime; for it would render their courts powerless to act in opposition to lawless public sentiment. The argument is not only unsound in principle but is in conflict with the practice that prevails in all of the States, so far as we are aware. The cases cited do not sustain the contention that disorder or other lawless conduct calculated to overawe the jury or the trial judge can be treated as a dissolution of the court or as rendering the proceedings coram non judice, in any such sense as to bar further proceedings. In Myers v. State, 97 Georgia, 76, (5), 99; Collier v. State, 115 Georgia, 803; Sanders v. State, 85 Indiana, 318; S. C., 44 Am. Rep. 29; Massey v. State, 31 Tex. Cr. Rep. 371, 381; S. C., 20 S. W. Rep. 758; and State v. Weldon, 91 S. Car. 29, 38; S. C., 39 L. R. A., N. S., 667, 669; — in ah of which it was held that the prisoner’s right to a fair trial had been interfered with by disorder or mob violence — it was not held that jurisdiction over the prisoner had been lost; on the contrary, in each instance a new trial was awarded as the appropriate remedy. So, in the cases where the trial judge abdicated his proper functions or absented himself during the trial (Hayes v. State, 58 Georgia, 36 (12), 49; Blend v. People, 41 N. Y. 604; Shaw v. People, 3 Hun, 272; aff’d 63 N. Y. 36; Hinman v. People, 13 Hun, 266; McClure v. State, 77 Indiana, 287; O’Brien v. People, 17 Colorado, 561; Ellerbe v. State, 75 Mississippi, 522; S. C., 41 L. R. A. 569) the reviewing of the State in each instance simply set aside the verdict and awarded a new trial.

The Georgia courts, in the present case, proceeded upon the theory that Frank, would have been entitled to this relief had his charges been true, and they refused a new trial only because they found his charges untrue save in a few minor particulars not amounting to more than irregularities, and not prejudicial to the accused. There was here no denial of due process of law.

2. We come, next, to consider the effect to be given to the fact, admitted for present purposes, that Frank was not present in the court-rooití when the verdict wa¡s rendered, his presence having been waived by his counsel, but without his knowledge or consent. No question is made but that at the common law and- under the Georgia decisions it is the right of the prisoner to be present throughout the entire trial, from the commencement of the selection of the jury until the verdict is rendered and jury discharged. Wade v. State, 12 Georgia, 25, 29; Martin v. State, 51 Georgia, 567; Nolan v. State, 53 Georgia, 137; S. C., 55 Georgia, 521; Smith v. State, 59 Georgia, 513; Bonner v. State, 67 Georgia, 510; Barton v. State, 67 Georgia, 653; Cawthon v. State, 119 Georgia, 395, 412; Bagwell v. State, 129 Georgia, 170; Lyons v. State, 7 Ga. App. 50, But the effect- of these decisions is that the prisoner may personally waive the right to be present when the verdict is rendered, and perhaps may. waive it by authorized act of his counsel; and that where; without his consent, the verdict is received in his absence, he may treat this as an error, and by timely motion demand a new trial, or (it seems) he may elect to treat the verdict as a nullity by moving in due season to set it aside as such. But we are unable to find that the courts of Georgia have in any case held that, by receiving a verdict in the absence of the prisoner and without his consent, the jurisdiction of the trial court was terminated. In the Nolan Case, supra, the verdict was set aside as void on the ground of the. absence of the prisoner; but this was not held to deprive the trial court of its jurisdiction. On the contrary, the jurisdiction was treated as remaining, and that court proceeded to exercise it by arraigning the. prisoner a second time upon the same indictment, when he pleaded specially, claiming his discharge because of former jeopardy; the trial court overruled this plea, the defendant excepted, anpl the jury found the defendant guilty; and, upon review, the Supreme Court reversed this judgment, not for the want of jurisdiction in the trial court, but for error committed in the exercise of jurisdiction. To the .same effect is Bagwell v. State, supra.

In most of the other. States, where error is committed by receiving a verdict of guilty during the involuntary absence of the accused, it is treated as merely requiring a new trial. In a few cases, the appellate court has ordered the defendant to be discharged, upon the ground that he had been once in jeopardy and a new trial would be futile.

However, the Georgia Supreme Court in the present case (83 S. E. Rep. 645) held, as pointed out in the prefatory statement, that because Frank, shortly after the verdict, was made fully aware of the facts, and he then made a motion for a new trial upon over 100 grounds, without including this as one, and had the motion heard by both the trial court and the Supreme Court, he could not, after this motion had been finally adjudicated against him, move to set aside the verdict as a nullity because of his absence when the verdict was rendered. There is nothing in the Fourteenth Amendment to prevent a State from adopting and enforcing so reasonable a regulation of procedure Dreyer v. Illinois, 187 U. S. 71, 77-80.

It is insisted that the enforced absence of Frank at that time was not only a deprivation of trial by jury, but was equally a deprivation of due process of law within the meaning of the Amendment, in that it took from him at a critical stage of the proceeding the right or opportunity to be heard. But repeated decisions of this court have put it beyond the range of further debate that the “due process” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment has not the effect of imposing upon the States, any particular form or mode of procedure, so long as the essential rights of notice and a hearing, or opportunity to be heard, before a competent tribunal are not interfered with. Indictment by grand jury is not essential to due process (Hurtado v. California, 110 U. S. 516, 532, 538; Uem Woon v. Oregon, 229 U. S. 586, 589, and cases cited). Trial by jury is not essential to it, either in civil cases (Walker v. Sauvinet, 92 U. S. 90), or in criminal (Hallinger v. Davis, 146 U. S. 314, 324; Maxwell v. Dow, 176 U. S. 581, 594, 602, 604).

It is argued that a State may not, while providing for trial by jury, permit the accused to waive the right to be heard in the mode characteristic of such trial, including the presence of the prisoner up to and at the time of the rendition of the verdict. But the cases cited do not support this contention. In Hopt v. Utah, 110 U. S. 574, 578 (principally relied upon), the court had under review a conviction in a territorial court after a trial subject to the local code of criminal procedure, which declared: If “the indictment is for a felony, the defendant must be personally present at the trial.” The judgment was reversed because of the action of the trial court in permitting certain challenges to jurors, based upon the ground of bias, to be tried out of the presence of the court, the defendant, and his counsel. The ground of the decision of this court was the violation of the plain mandate of the local statute; and the power of the accused or his counsel to dispense with the requirement as to his personal presence was denied on the ground that his life could not be lawfully taken except in the mode prescribed by law. No other question was involved. See Diaz v. United States, 223 U. S. 442, 455, 458.

.The distinction between what the common law requires with respect to trial by jury in criminal cases, and what the States may enact without contravening the “due process” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, is very clearly evidenced by Hallinger v. Davis, 146 U. S. 314, and Lewis v. United States, 146 U. S. 370, which were under consideration by the court at the same time, both opinions being written by Mr. Justice Shiras. In the Lewis Case, which was a conviction of murder in a Circuit Court of the United States, the trial practice being regulated by the common law, it was held to be a leading principle, pervading the entire law of criminal procedure, that after indictment nothing should be done in the absence of the prisoner; that the making of challenges is an essential part of the trial, and it was one of the substantial rights of the prisoner to be brought face to face with the jurors at the timé the challenges were made; and that in the absence of a statute, this right as it existed at common law must not be abridged. But in the Hallinger Case, where a State by legislative enactment had permitted one charged with a capital offense to' waive a trial by jury and elect to be tried by the court, it was held that this method of procedure did not conflict with the Fourteenth Amendment. So in Howard v. Kentucky, 200 U. S. 164, 175 — a case closely in point upon the question now presented— this .court, finding that by the law of the State an occasional •absence of the accused from the trial, from which no injury resulted to his substantial rights, was not deemed material error, held that the application of this rule of law did not amount to a denial of due process within the meaning of the Fourteenth Amendment.

In fact, this-court has sustained the States in establishing a great variety of departures from .the common law procedure respecting jury trials. Thus, in Brown v. New Jersey, 175 U. S. 172, 176; a statute providing for the trial of murder cases by struck jury was sustained, notwithstanding it did not provide for twenty peremptory challenges. Simon v. Craft, 182 U. S. 427, 435, while not a criminal case, involved the property of a person alleged to be. of unsound mind, and it was held that an Alabama Statute, under which the sheriff determined that Mrs. Simon’s health and safety would be endangered by her presence at the trial of the question of her sanity, so that while served with,notice she was detained in custody and not allowed to be present at the hearing of the inquisition, • did not deprive her of property without due process of law. In Felts v. Murphy, 201 U. S. 123, 129, where the prisoner was convicted of the crime of murder and sentenced'to imprisonment for life, although he did not hear a -word of the evidence given upon the trial because of his almost total deafness, his inability to hear being such that it required a person to speak through an ear-trumpet close to his ear in order that such person should be heard by him, and the trial court having failed to see to it that the testimony in the case was repeated to him- through his ear-trumpet, this court said that this was “at most an error, which did not take away from the court its jurisdiction over the subject-matter and over the person off the accused.” In Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78, 101, 111, it was held that the exemption of a prisoner from compulsory self-incrimination in the state courts was not included in the guaranty of due process of law contained in the Fourteenth Amendment. In Jordan v. Massachusetts, 225. U. S. 167, 177, where one of the jurors was subject to reasonable doubt as to his sanity, and the state court, pursuant to the local law of criminal procedure, determined upon a mere preponderance of the evidence that he.was sane, the conviction was affirmed. In Garland v. Washington, 232 U. S. 642, 645, it was held that the want of a formal arraignment, treated by the State as depriving the accused of no substantial right and as having been waived and thereby lost, did .not amount to depriving defendant of his liberty without due process of law.

Our conclusion upon this branch of the case is, that the practice established in the criminal courts of Georgia: that a defendant may waive his right to be present when the jury renders its verdict, and that such waiver may be given after as well as before the event, and is to be inferred from the making of a motion for new trial upon other grounds alone, when the facts respecting the reception of the verdict are within the prisoner’s knowledge at the time of making that motion; is a regulation of criminal procedure that it is within the authority of the State to adopt. In adopting it, the State declares in effect, as it reasonably may declare, that the right of the accused to be present at the reception of the verdict is but an incident of the right of trial by jury; and since the State may, without infringing the Fourteenth Amendment, abolish trial by jury, it may limit the effect to be given to an error respecting one of the incidents of such trial. The presence of the prisoner when the verdict is rendered is not so essential a part of the hearing that a rule of practice permitting the accused to waive it and holding him bound by the waiver amounts to a deprivation of “due process of law.”

3. The insistence that the decision of the Supreme Court of Georgia in affirming the denial of the motion to set aside the verdict (83 S. E. Rep. 645) on the ground that Frank’s failure to raise the objection upon- the motion for a new trial amounted to a waiver of it, was inconsistent with the previous practice as established in Nolan v. State, 53 Georgia, 137; S. C., 55 Georgia, 521; and therefore amounted in effect to an ex post facto law in contravention of § 10 of Article I of the Federal Constitution, needs but a word. Assuming the inconsistency, it is sufficient to say that the constitutional prohibition: “No State shall . . . pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts,” as its terms indicate, is directed against legislative action only, and does not reach erroneous or inconsistent decisions by the courts. Calder v. Bull, 3 Dall. 386, 389; Fletcher v. Peck, 6 Cr. 87, 138; Kring v. Missouri, 107 U. S. 221, 227; Thompson v. Utah, 170 U. S. 343, 351; Cross Lake Club v. Louisiana, 224 U. S. 632, 638; Ross v. Oregon, 227 U. S. 150, 161.

. 4. To conclude:. Taking appellant’s petition as a whole, and not regarding any particular portion of it to the exclusion of the rest — dealing with its true and substantial meaning and not merely with its superficial import — it shows that Frank, having been formally accused of a grave crime, was placed on trial before a court of competent jurisdiction, with a jury lawfully constituted,; he had a public trial, deliberately conducted, with the benefit of counsel for his defense; he was found guilty and' sentenced pursuant to the laws of the State; twice he has" moved the trial court to grant a new trial, and once to set aside the verdict as a nullity; three times he has been heard upon appeal before the court of last resort of that State, and in every instance the adverse action of the trial court has been affirmed; his allegations of hostile public sentiment and disorder in and about the ■ court-room, improperly influencing the trial court and the-jury against him, have been rejected because found untrue in point of fact upon evidence presumably justifying that finding, and which he has not produced in the present proceeding; his contention that his lawful rights were infringed because he was not permitted to be present when the, jury rendered its verdict, has been set aside because it was waived by his failure to raise the objection in due season when fully cognizant of the facts. In all of these proceedings the State, through its courts, has retained jurisdiction over him, has accorded to him the fullest right and opportunity to be heard according to the established modes of procedure, and now holds, him in custody to pay the penalty of the crime of which he has been adjudged guilty. In our opinion, he is not shown to have been deprived of any right guaranteed to him by the Fourteenth Amendment or any other provision of the Constitution or laws of the United States; on the contrary, he has been convicted, and is now held in custody, under “due process of law” within the meaning.of the Constitution.

The final order of the District Court, refusing the application for a writ of habeas corpus, is

Affirmed.