Nobles v. State of Georgia

• Decision Date: 29 November 1897
• Docket Number: No. 376,376
• Parties: NOBLES v. STATE OF GEORGIA
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

168 U.S. 398

18 S.Ct. 87

42 L.Ed. 515

NOBLES

v STATE OF GEORGIA.

No. 376.

November 29, 1897.

Marion W. Harris and W. C. Glenn, for plaintiff in error.

J. M. Terrell, for the State of Georgia.

Mr. Justice WHITE delivered the opinion of the court.

In July, 1895, Elizabeth Nobles was tried in the superior court of Twiggs county, Ga., upon an indictment for murder, and was found guilty, and sentenced to death. The bill of exceptions in the record now before us recites that, 'the said sentence of death having been regularly and legally suspended and superseded by the order of the court, the case came on again to be heard before the court on the 23d day of June'; the object of the hearing being, as stated, 'for the purpose of passing sentence of death by the court upon the said Elizabeth Nobles in said stated case,'—that is to say, in consequence of the order which had suspended the sentence of death previously imposed in July, 1895. On the date of the appearance for resentence, June 23, 1896, W. W. Baughn, the present plaintiff in error, appeared on behalf of the convict, and presented a motion or petition, The paper recited that the said Elizabeth Nobles should not be sentenced:

'First. Because, as petitioner avers, the said Elizabeth Nobles is now insane.

'Second. Because, the said Elizabeth Nobles being now insane, it is contrary to the policy of the law, and is illegal, that the sentence of death should be imposed upon her by the court.

'And petitioner further says that, under article 14 of the amendments to the constitution of the United States, it is provided as follows: 'Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law; Lor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.'

'Petitioner says that 'due process of law' means law in its regular course of administration through courts of justice, and that by the fourteenth amendment, above quoted, whilst the states have power to deal with crime within their borders, no state can deprive any person of equal and impartial justice under the law, and that law in its regular course of administration through courts of justice is due process, and unless the same take place through courts of justice the constituational requirement above quoted is nullified.

'Petitioner therefore specially sets up and claims the right of due process of law through its regular administration through courts of justice, under and by virtue of the constitutional guaranty under the fourteenth amendment to the constitution of the United States, above quoted.

'Petitioner says that it is essential to due process of law, within the meaning of the above requirement, that a jury be impaneled on the issue now tendered by this petition, and that trial take place before a judge of the superior court of the state of Georgia, according to the due and regular form of proceedings in our courts; whenever an issue of fact is made in a superior court in the state of Georgia, the trial of the questions thereby raised is a function of the superior court of the county having jurisdiction; and that the trial of the question raised by this petition is a function of the superior court of Twiggs county, in which said court the said Mrs. Nobles was convicted of murder.

'Petitioner further says that the proceedings contemplated under section 4666 of the Code of Georgia are not due process of law, for these reasons, to wit.'

The grounds alleged were eight in number, and, in substance, charged that the method of inquiry provided by the Georgia statutes for ascertaining whether one who had been convicted of crime was insane at the time of the inquiry was not due process of law, under the constitution of the United States, because the investigation which the law authorized was not judicial in character. The detailed enumeration of why the remedy provided by the statute was asserted in the petition not to be judicial, as well as the prayer of the petition, are set out in the margin.¹

The court refused to grant the petition, and resentenced the prisoner to the death penalty. Thereupon the petition was again presented, and, upon its being again refused, exceptions were noted. The case, on the exceptions reserved, as just stated, was taken to the supreme court of the state of Georgia, where the action of the lower court was affirmed (28 S. E. 68), and to this judgment of the supreme court of the state of Georgia this writ of error is prosecuted. There is no question raised that the statutes of Georgia do not afford adequate means for trying by court and jury any question made as to the insanity of the accused at the time of the commission of a crime.

The statute law of Georgia directly applicable to and involved in this controversy is as follows:

Code Ga. 1882, § 4666 (Code Ga. 1895, §§ 1047, 1049): 'Become Insance after Conviction: If, after any convict shall have been sentenced to the punishment of death, he shall become insane, the sheriff of the county, with concurrence and assistance of the ordinary thereof, shall summon a jury of twelve men to inquire into such insanity; and if it be found, by the inquistion of such jury, that such convict is insane, the sheriff shall suspend the execution of the sentence directing the death of such convict, and make report of the said inquisition and suspension of execution to the presiding judge of the district, who shall cause the same to be entered on the minutes of the superior court of the county where the conviction was had. And, at any time thereafter, when it shall appear to the said presiding judge, either by inquisition or otherwise, that the said convict is of sound mind, the said judge shall issue a new warrant, directing the sheriff to do exe- cution of the said sentence on said convict, at such time and place as the said judge may appoint and direct in the said warrant, which the sheriff shall be bound to do accordingly. And the said judge shall cause the said new warrant, and other proceedings in the case, to be entered on the minutes of the said superior court.'

The provisions of this section are a reproduction in the Code of prior legislation. Acts Ga. 1855-56, p. 36 (Acts Ga. 1859, p. 50):

Code Ga. 1882, § 4666a (Code Ga. 1895, § 1048): 'Lunatics, How Disposed of. When any person shall, after conviction of a capital crime, become insane, and shall be so declared in accordance with the provisions of section 4666 of the Code, it shall be the duty of the judge to certify the fact, and the said convict shall be received into the lunatic asylum, there to be safely and securedly kept and treated as other adjudged insane persons.'

The provisions of this section are a reproduction in the Code of an act passed in 1874. Acts Ga. 1874, p. 30.

The above sections, as existing in the Georgia Code of 1882, were cited by the supreme court of Georgia as controlling, and the brief for the plaintiff in error also states this to be the case. We have given the corresponding sections in the Code of 1895, although such sections, as reproduced in the latter Code, are in three sections, and are somewhat altered in phraseology, but not so as to be material to the issue before us.

In the argument at bar the contention was that these sections of the Georgia law afforded an opportunity to investigate the question of the insanity of a person convicted of crime only when the suggestion of insanity was made after conviction and sentence, and, therefore, that the statutes furnished no means of testing the question of insanity arising after conviction and before sentence; and this fact, it was asserted, amounted to a denial of due process of law, under the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States. The construction of the statutes upon which this proposition was predicated is as follows: Although the text of section 4666a, which provides for an investigation into the question of insanity when 'any person shall, after conviction of a capital crime, become insane,' is conceded to be broad enough to cover all cases arising between conviction and sentence, yet the words 'after conviction,' it is urged should be construed as applying only to insanity arising after conviction and sentence, because section 4666 provides only for an investigation 'after the convict shall have been sentenced.' That is to say, the construction contended for, instead of treating the two sections of the Code as in pari materia, and construing them together, so as to give effect to both, restricts and limits the natural and obvious meaning of the later statute by incorporating into it the provisions of the earlier one. If the contention that the words 'after sentence,' in the earlier statute, only apply to cases where insanity is suggested after sentence, and not to those where it is claimed to have arisen between conviction and sentence, then the provision in the subsequent section extending the remedy to cases arising 'after conviction' cured the omission, if any there was, in the first statute. Instead, then, of construing the earlier as controlling the later statute, the elementary rule of interpretation would require that the later be considered as amplifying and providing for the thing omitted in the prior statute. While these conclusions are obvious, we are nevertheless relieved from the necessity of so deciding, since the opinion of the supreme court of the state in the case before us expressly holds that 'the provisions of the Code relating to inquistions in such matters are sufficiently comprehensive to cover all cases where the alleged insanity begins at any time after the rendition of the verdict of guilty.' We follow the interpretation given by the supreme court of the state of Georgia to the statutes of that state.

Indeed, the question which arises on the record does not require a consideration of what would be due process of law under the fourteenth amendment, where insanity was suggested...