Miller v. Territory of Oklahoma

149 F. 330, 79 C.C.A. 268, 1906 U.S. App. LEXIS 4471
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit
DecidedDecember 13, 1906
DocketNos. 2,398, 2,470
StatusPublished
Cited by18 cases

This text of 149 F. 330 (Miller v. Territory of Oklahoma) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Miller v. Territory of Oklahoma, 149 F. 330, 79 C.C.A. 268, 1906 U.S. App. LEXIS 4471 (8th Cir. 1906).

Opinion

PPIIEIPS, District Judge.

The plaintiff in error (hereinafter for convenience designated as the defendant) was indicted, convicted, and sentenced to the penitentiary in the district court of Oklahoma. Territory for the offense of grand larceny in stealing cattle, alleged to be the property of William Louthers. This judgment having been affirmed on appeal to .the Supreme Court of the territory, the defendant sued out a writ of error from this court to have said judgment reviewed. The explanation of the two numbered cases is that the first writ of error was sued out from the Supreme Court of the Territory and attested by its clerk. To correct this a second writ of error was taken out in due form from this court, with the proper teste.

The jurisdiction of this court to review the decision of the Supreme Court of the territory is challenged by the Attorney General of the territory. The case of Folsom v. United States, 160 U. S. 121, 16 Sup. Ct. 222, 40 L. Ed. 363, was certified from this court to the Supreme Court to have determined the question as to whether the Circuit Court of Appeals had jurisdiction to review the decision of the Supreme Court of the territory of New Mexico affirming a judgment of the district court in a criminal proceeding, the punishment for which was imprisonment in the penitentiary. As such punishment brought the case within the definition of an infamous crime, as employed in section 5 of the act creating the Circuit Courts of Appeals of the United States, the Supreme Court answered the question submitted in the negative. Thereupon Congress, by Act Jan. 20, 1897, c. 68, 29 Stat. 492 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 549], amended the act establishing the Circuit Courts of Appeals by striking out the words “or otherwise infamous” from section 5 of the act; the purpose being to confer jurisdiction on the Courts of Appeal to review the decisions of the Supreme -Court of the territory in criminal cases, including infamous crimes. In Ex parte Moran, (C. C. A.) 144 Fed. 599, Judge Sanborn, speaking for the court, said:

“This court bas the power to review in that way final decisions of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma in all cases in which the jurisdiction below is dependent upon the citizenship of the opposite parties to the suit, in all admiralty cases, in all eases arising under the patent laws, the revenue laws, and the bankruptcy laws, and in all eases arising under the criminal [333]*333laws except in cases of the conviction of a capital crime. [Authorities cited.] The fact may be noticed in passing that this court has the same jurisdiction by writ of error or appeal to review the judgments and decrees of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma that it has to review the judgments and decrees of the Circuit Courts of the United States within its circuit in which its judgments are final. Neither the Supreme Court nor this court has any jurisdiction to review in this way the judgments of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma in cases of a conviction of a capital crime.”

The Supreme Court in New v. Oklahoma, 195 U. S. 252, 25 Sup. Ct. 68, 49 L. Ed. 182, has decided that writs of error from the Supreme Court of the United States to the Supreme Court of Oklahoma do not lie even in capital cases.

Counsel for the territory makes the contention that the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court of Appeals lies to review the decisions of the Supreme Court of the territory in criminal cases only where the United • States is a party, and consequently where the criminal offense is denounced by federal statute, and not, as in this case, where the crime is proscribed by legislative act of the territory. In support of this proposition the case of Aztec Mining Company v. Ripley, 151 U. S. 79, 14 Sup. Ct. 236, 38 L. Ed. 80, is cited. It is true that in the opinion in that case the learned Chief Justice used the following language:

“By the fifteenth section of the judiciary act of March 3, 1891 (26 Stat. 830, c. 517 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 554]), the Circuit Courts of Appeals, in cases in which their judgments were made final by the act, were empowered to exercise appellate jurisdiction over the judgments, orders, or decrees of the Supreme Courts of the several territories; but as this case was not a case in admiralty, nor'a case arising under the criminal, revenue, or i>atent laws of the United States, * * * it did not belong to either of the classes defined by section 6 of that act (26 Stat 828 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901. p. 549]), as cases in which the judgments or decrees of the Circuit Courts of Appeals should he final.”

It is evident that the words “of the United States” were either a mere inadvertence or that it was intended to apply alone to patent •or revenue laws. The structure of the clause in the statute is, “in all cases arising under the patent laws, under the revenue laws, and under the criminal laws.” There isvnothing in the language employed by the statute to indicate that a review would not apply to cases arising under the criminal laws of the territory, as well as those of the United States. All statutes enacted by the territorial government are under authority of the organic act; and decisions of the territorial courts, in the absence of some words of negation or manifest omission in the organic act, are reviewable either by the Supreme Court or by the United States Courts of Appeal; and such has been the practice on-appeals and writs of error from the Indian and Oklahoma Territories since the creation of the Courts of Appeal.

Turning to the matters sought to be reviewed under this writ of error, they are largely directed to the alleged misconduct of the trial judge in the treatment accorded to counsel for the defendant and his witnesses, and to alleged improper statements made by the judge in' the presence of the jury. It is to be confessed that in some respects the trial of the case was conducted in a disorderly manner. It partook too much of a personal altercation- among the respective counsel, in which, at times, the court participated. But,' affer redding-the' con- " [334]*334nection in which the matters complained of occurred, we are impressed with the fact that complaining Counsel are not so .blameless for the disagreeable incidents as to entitle them, to cast the whole responsibility therefor upon the trial judge. It is a- method sometimes resorted to, as reprehensible as it ought to be infrequent, that in defenses deemed possibly desperate, for counsel by their course of conduct to-so annoy and exasperate the judge as to make him, now and then, forget the pedestal on which he sits, and by retaliation display an unjudicial temper and lose his equipoise, in the expectation that theréby he may be led into the commission of some reversible error. One of the surest methods for counsel to inspire a proper dignity on the part of the court and to obtain fair treatment is by their own respectful deportment and fairness to impress the court with a belief in their intellectual honesty and sincerity, rather than by persistent contention, contradiction, and wrangling with the court, and at times injecting improper matters into the trial, invite antagonism from the court and drive it from its propriety. To many of the unpleasant and reprehensible incidents of the trial complained of by counsel for defendant, the maxim might well be applied: “Communis error facit jus.”

There were three attorneys engaged in the defense.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
149 F. 330, 79 C.C.A. 268, 1906 U.S. App. LEXIS 4471, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/miller-v-territory-of-oklahoma-ca8-1906.