United States v. Mathues

• Citation: 21 F.2d 533
• Decision Date: 10 September 1927
• Docket Number: No. 60.,60.
• Parties: UNITED STATES ex rel. MARO v. MATHUES, U. S. Marshal.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Western District of Pennsylvania

21 F.2d 533 (1927)

UNITED STATES ex rel. MARO v. MATHUES, U. S. Marshal.

No. 60.

District Court, E. D. Pennsylvania.

September 10, 1927.

Adrian Bonnelly, of Philadelphia, Pa., for relator.

George W. Coles, U. S. Atty., of Philadelphia, Pa., for defendant.

DICKINSON, District Judge.

The final disposition of this cause has been delayed. The conclusion reached is that the relator should be discharged.

Discussion.

The relator is under indictment for an offense arising out of homicide. The sole question now raised is one of jurisdiction. This word is a very comprehensive one, and is used in many different senses. It is used to express the presence of governmental power, as, for illustration, that a vessel of any nation is viewed as part of the territory subject to the governmental control of that nation. It is this thought of jurisdiction which is urged upon us in the brief submitted by the prosecution. Jurisdiction, however, may have a much narrower significance. This cause affords us an apt illustration of the distinction. Conceding jurisdiction in the sense of governmental control over a vessel, a secondary question arises of the jurisdictional power to denounce some act as a crime and of a particular court to try the offense. The third question suggested is not here raised, but the second question is.

Analyzing the general question of jurisdiction into these three parts, the first and third may be conceded, and our attention centered upon the second. Congress has no power to denounce an act as criminal merely because it was committed within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States. The power here is to be found, if it exists, in that provision of the Constitution which granted the express power to Congress "to define and punish inter alia felonies committed on the high seas," etc. Article 1, § 8, cl. 10. The act here charged to have been committed, if an offense against the laws of the United States, is a felony, and its definition and punishment undoubtedly within the power of Congress, if the other condition is likewise present. That condition is that the offense was committed upon the high seas. Inquiry here is in consequence narrowed to the fact inquiry of where the act was committed. If on the high seas, Congress has declared it to be an offense against the laws of the United States; otherwise, not.

In the assertion of the power thus committed to it, Congress has ordained that the different grades of homicide committed "upon the high seas or on any * * * waters within the admiralty and maritime jurisdiction of the United States and out of the jurisdiction of any particular state, * * * on board any vessel belonging in whole or in part to the United States or any citizen thereof," etc. (Criminal Code, § 272 18 USCA § 451) are offenses against the laws of the United States. The offense here, if any, was committed in an Italian port. The quoted expression of Congress evidently has application to domestic and not foreign waters and to waters which are outside of the jurisdiction of any nation and are commonly denominated the high seas.

The Wildenhus Case, 120 U. S. 12, 7 S. Ct. 383, 30 L. Ed. 565, gives very clear expression to the doctrine of the law so far as it arises out of the principle of comity. The act of Congress expresses...