West v. Gammon
| Decision Date | 04 December 1899 |
| Docket Number | 771. |
| Citation | 98 F. 426 |
| Parties | WEST v. GAMMON et al. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Sixth Circuit |
Abram M. Tillman, U.S. Atty.
Before TAFT, LURTON, and DAY, Circuit Judges.
This is an appeal from the circuit court of the United States for the Middle district of Tennessee, in which it is sought to reverse the judgment of the circuit court in a proceeding in habeas corpus in which the writ was sued out to obtain the release of the appellant from confinement in the penitentiary in the state of Tennessee, under a sentence passed upon him by the circuit court of the United States upon his pleas of guilty of offenses arising under sections 3279 and 3281 of the Revised Statutes of the United States. It is disclosed in the record that, having been arraigned upon indictments duly found for violation of these sections, appellant pleaded guilty, and was sentenced, in accordance with the statute, to pay a fine of $1,000 and costs, and be imprisoned for a period of 16 months, in each case the sentences to run concurrently. There was no objection at the time on the part of appellant or his counsel to these proceedings, and the appellant was committed accordingly. Afterwards a petition for a writ of habeas corpus was filed with the clerk of the court below, alleging that the appellant was wrongfully restrained of his liberty, because the sentence imposed was in violation of the rights guarantied to him by article 6 of the amendments to the federal constitution. A writ having been issued and hearing had, the circuit court declined to grant the prayer of the petition, and dismissed the same; to which action appellant excepted, and the case is brought here for review. The question made is, was it proper for the court to sentence the appellant upon his plea of guilty without the intervention of a jury? The claim of the appellant is that this action is in violation of the sixth amendment of the constitution of the United States, which reads:
'In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the state and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the assistance of counsel for his defense.'
It is manifestly the purpose of this amendment, among other things to preserve to the accused in all criminal prosecutions the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury in the state or district wherein the crime has been committed. It is claimed by the appellant that this language means, not only that the accused shall have the right, if he shall see fit to claim it, to a jury trial in prosecutions for crime but requires that he be convicted and punished for a criminal offense in no other way, not even by confession of guilt by plea in open court. It is claimed that it is the purpose to secure to the accused, beyond the possibility of waiver, in prosecutions in the United States courts for crimes against the United States, immunity of punishment, unless conviction be had by a competent jury. It is well settled by repeated decisions in the state and federal courts that constitutional provisions aiming to preserve to the citizens of the United States the right of trial by jury have reference to that right as it existed at the time of the adoption of such constitutional guaranty. This amendment to the constitution must be construed with reference to the common-law right to a jury trial as the same existed at the time of its adoption as a part of the federal constitution. This is the conclusion of Judge Cooley in his work on Constitutional Limitations (5th Ed. 319):
'Accusations of criminal conduct are tried at the common law by jury; and wherever the right to this trial is guarantied by the constitution, without qualification or restriction, it must be understood as retained in all those cases which were triable by jury at the common law, and with all the common-law incidents to a jury trial, so far, at least, as they can be regarded as tending to the protection of the accused.'
In the late case of Thompson v. Utah, 170 U.S. 343, 18 Sup.Ct. 620, 42 L.Ed. 1061, Mr. Justice Harlan, in considering the question of the right to jury trial, says:
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