Dowell v. United States

• Decision Date: 18 November 1895
• Docket Number: No. 552,552
• Citation: 159 U.S. 596,40 L.Ed. 271,16 S.Ct. 111
• Parties: McDOWELL v. UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

159 U.S. 596

16 S.Ct. 111

40 L.Ed. 271

McDOWELL

v UNITED STATES.

No. 552.

November 18, 1895.

This case comes to this court on questions certified by the court of appeals of the Fourth circuit. The facts, as stated, are that a vacancy existed in the office of district judge of the United States for the district of South Carolina, from January 1, 1894, to February 12, 1894. The regular terms of the district court for the Western district were fixed by law to be held at Greenville on the first Mondays of February and August (26 Stat. 71), and the first Monday of February, 1894, fell on the fifth day of the month. On January 30, 1894, the following order, made by Hon. Charles H. Simonton, one of the circuit judges of the circuit, was duly filed in the clerk's office:

'It appearing to me by the certificate of the clerk, under the seal of the court, this day filed, that there is such an accumulation of business and urgency for thie transaction thereof in the district court for the Western district of this state, and that the public interests require the designation and appointment of a district judge within this circuit to hold the regular term of this court beginning on the first Monday of February, 1894, at Greenville, South Carolina:

'Now, therefore, in consideration of the premises and on motion of the United States attorney, I do hereby designate and appoint the Honorable Augustus S. Seymour, judge of the district court of the United States for the Eastern distict of North Carolina, the same being in the Fourth circuit, to hold and preside over the said term of court, and to have and to exercise within the Western district of South Carolina the same powers that are vested in the judge of the said district.'

In pursuance of this order, Judge Seymour held and presided over the regular term of the district court for that district from February 5th to February 12th, on which day Hon. William H. Brawley, appointed and duly commissioned as district judge, qualified and entered upon the discharge of his official duties, and held and presided at the term from that day until the conclusion of the proceedings in this case. On February 16th an indictment was returned into the court against A. F. McDowell, the plaintiff in error. Upon this indictment McDowell was tried February 21st and 22d, and a verdict of guilty returned. A motion for a new trial was overruled February 23d. Thereupon, and before sentence, McDowell made a motion in arrest of judgment, on the ground that the indictment had been found, and the subsequent proceedings had thereon, at what was an unlawful term of court, and that such indictment and subsequent proceedings were consequently void. This motion was overruled, and sentence pronounced upon the verdict. The making of the motion in arrest and its disposition appear in the record in a bill of exceptions, which refers to the indictment as found by 'the grand jury impaneled at the special February term of said court, at Greenville, at the district aforesaid,' and the statement of the matter upon which the motion in arrest was founded commences: 'At the opening of the special February term, 1894, of said court, that being the term at which said indictment was found,'—but the record nowhere discloses the calling of any special term as such. Upon these facts the court of appeals certified these questions:

'(1) Whether plaintiff in error was indicted, convicted, and sentenced at a lawful term of the district court for the district of South Carolina, and the Western district thereof, sitting at Greenville, as set forth in this certificate.

'(2) Whether the question as to the validity of the indictment and proceedings against plaintiff in error was open to consideration on the motion in arrest of judgment.'

J. Altheus Johnson, for plaintiff in error.

Asst. Atty. Gen. Whitney, for the United States.

Mr. Justice BREWER, after stating the facts, delivered the opinion of the court.

The contentions of counsel for plaintiff in error are that the power of a circuit judge or justice to call one district judge from his own into another district does not extend to cases in which there is a vacancy in the office of judge of the latter district; that the order of the circuit judge designating and appointing Judge Seymour to hold the February term was void; that the term lapsed; that, no special term having been called, Judge Brawley was attempting to hold the district court at a time unauthorized by law; and that, therefore, all proceedings before him were coram non judice and void.

This obviously presents a mere matter of statutory construction, for the power of congress to provide that one district judge may temporarily discharge the duties of that office in another district cannot be doubted. It involves no trespass upon the executive power of appointment. There is no constitutional provision restricting the authority of a district judge to any particular territorial limits. District courts are solely the caeation of statute, and the place in which a judge thereof may exercise jurisdiction is subject absolutely to the control of congress.

At first there was no authority for the temporary transfer of one judge to another district. The judiciary act of 1789, § 6 (1 Stat. 76), simply provided that a district judge, if unable to attend at the day appointed for the holding of any term, might, by his written order, continue it to any designated time, and that in case of a vacancy all matters pending in the court should be continued as of course until the first regular term after the filling of the vacancy.

Since then there has been repeated legisalation, each successive statute seemingly intended to make larger provision for the regular and continued transaction of the business of the district court. Thus, in 1850 (9 Stat. 442; Rev. St. § 591), an act was passed providing that when any district judge was prevented by any disability from holding any term, and that fact was made to appera by the certificate of the clerk, under the seal of the court, to the...