Barnes v. State
| Decision Date | 11 April 1946 |
| Docket Number | 120. |
| Citation | 47 A.2d 50,186 Md. 287 |
| Parties | BARNES v. STATE. |
| Court | Maryland Court of Appeals |
Appeal from Circuit Court for Prince George's County; Charles C Marbury, Chief Judge.
Jack Lester Barnes was convicted of rape, and he appeals.
Affirmed.
John F. Lillard and Jerrold V. Powers, both of Hyattsville, for appellant.
J Edgar Harvey, Asst. Atty. Gen., and T. Barton Harrington Asst. Atty. Gen. (William Curran, Atty. Gen., and A. Gwynn Bowie, State's Atty. for Prince George's County, of Upper Marlboro, on the brief), for appellee.
Before MARBURY, C.J., and DELAPLAINE, COLLINS GRASON, and HENDERSON, JJ.
Appeallant, who was not a citizen of Maryland, was indicted by the grand jury of Prince George's County, Maryland, for committing a rape on a citizen of Virginia. The crime occurred on August 4, 1945, on a steamboat running on the Potomac River, from Norfolk to Washington, and passing through Prince George's County, although at the time of the crime, the evidence shows it was in the waters of Charles County. Appellant filed a plea to the jurisdiction to which the State's demurrers were sustained. The appellant was then tried and convicted, and after conviction he filed a motion in arrest of judgment. This was overruled and he was sentenced to be hanged, and on the same day noted his appeal.
The questions raised by the appellant have nothing to do with the conduct of the trial, but concern the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court for Prince George's County. It is contended, first, that if that Court has jurisdiction, it has it only by virtue of Section 631 of Article 27 of the Annotated Code, which provides for the prosecution of any person who may commit any indictable offense on a steamboat within the State of Maryland in any county, to or through which the steamboat may run. The last portion of the statute states that in case of bailable offenses, the offender may be held to bail by any justice of the peace in any such county 'but such presentment, indictment and trial shall be in the same county and city in which such justice of the peace shall be.' It is claimed in the motion for arrest of judgment that the proof shows that the offense occurred outside of Prince George's County, and it is not shown that the defendant was brought before a justice of the peace in Prince George's County. It is urged that the last is a jurisdictional allegation and must show on the record. There is nothing in the record to show that appellant was ever brought before a justice of the peace anywhere before he was indicted. It is the usual practice to bring such offenders before a justice of the peace, who, after hearing or waiver of hearing, holds them for the action of the grand jury. It is significant that appellant does not allege that he was not brought before a justice of the peace, but merely that the record does not show he was.
The procedure of bringing a person charged with a felony before a magistrate is one of the ordinary processes of justice, and is not usually necessary to give jurisdiction to a court in which a grand jury has indicted him. Under usual circumstances, if the crime occurred within the territorial limits of the county, there would be nothing in the records of the trial before the Circuit Court of that county to show by what means he was apprehended or held for the action of the grand jury. The proceedings would start with the presentment and the indictment. Section 631 of Article 27 is not, in our opinion, intended to require any entry in the court records in cases coming under its provisions. It is intended to give jurisdiction over an offender, coming within its provisions, to the county which first uses the ordinary processes to hold him, preliminary to indictment. If the appellant in this case had alleged and shown, at a proper time and in an appropriate manner during the proceedings, that he had been taken before a justice of the peace and held by the latter in some county other than Prince George's, the question might then arise whether Prince George's County or the other county or both had jurisdiction. But that is not the situation presented. We see no force in this contention of appellant.
Appellant's second contention is much more far reaching. He claims that under the Compact of 1785, made between the States of Maryland and Virginia, at a time when the states were bound together only by the Articles of Confederation, and before the Constitution of the United States was adopted, offenses of the kind with which he is charged, occurring on the Potomac River, if against a citizen of the State of Virginia, can only be tried in the Courts of Virginia, and that the Courts of Maryland have no jurisdiction over them. The Compact of 1785, made between two sovereign states, at a time when they had the right to enter into such an agreement, was ratified and approved by Chapter 1 of the Acts of 1785 of the General Assembly of Maryland, and was also approved and ratified by Chapter 18 of the Acts of 1786 of the General Assembly of Virginia. A consideration of the circumstances leading up to the Compact, and the Compact itself, and the subsequent legislation, and the decisions of this court and the courts of Virginia, and the Federal courts, in relation to the Compact, is necessary in order to decide this question.
In construing a statute, '* * * courts * * * may with propriety recur to the history of the times when it was passed; and this is frequently necessary, in order to ascertain the reason as well as the meaning of particular provisions in it.' United States v. Union Pac. R. Co., 91 U.S. 72, 79, 23 L.Ed. 224. 'Statutes should be construed with a view to the original intent and meaning of the makers, and such construction should be put upon them, as best to answer that intention, which may be collected from the cause or necessity of making the act, or from foreign circumstances; and when discovered, ought to be followed, although such construction may seem to be contrary to the letter of the statute.' Chesapeake & O. Canal Co. v. Baltimore & Ohio R. Co., 4 Gill & J. 1, at pages 151, 152. This last quotation is repeated in Frazier v. Warfield, 13 Md. 279, at page 301. See also Agricultural College v. Atkinson, 102 Md. 557, 560, 62 A. 1035; Riggin v. Wyatt, 139 Md. 476, at page 478, 115 A. 755, and Maryland Unemployment Compensation Board v. Albrecht, 183 Md. 87, at page 94, 36 A.2d 666. Bearing in mind these well-established principles of statutory construction, we turn first to an examination of the circumstances and conditions leading up to the execution of the Compact of 1785.
There had been, since the earliest times, boundary difficulties between the province of Maryland and the province of Virginia. These difficulties were based upon contradictory charters granted respectively to Lord Baltimore, on the one hand, and to the London Company and to Lord Culpepper, on the other. It is not necessary to discuss these boundary questions, except to state that at the time of the Compact, both states claimed the Potomac River, and both also claimed a part of the Chesapeake Bay, and of the Pocomoke River, depending upon the location of Watkins Point. These boundary disputes were not in themselves the reason for the Compact, which had nothing to do with boundaries as such. But the boundary disputes gave rise to frequent conflict as to jurisdiction over the waters of the Potomac River, the Pocomoke River, and certain parts of Chesapeake Bay, and the rights of citizens of the two states on these waters and adjacent thereto. In addition, Virginia, which had undisputed ownership of the entrance to the Chesapeake Bay, was collecting tolls from all vessels entering the Bay and bound for Maryland ports, and this was one of the main grievances which Maryland desired to correct. It is an interesting fact that the Maryland Commissioners were instructed by the Legislature to make the abolition of these tolls a sine qua non to the entering into any compact at all. If this was not agreed to by Virginia, they were told not to go any further in the matter. The history of the circumstances leading up to the Compact will be found in Scharf's History of Maryland, Volume II, page 528, etc., and in the opinion of Mr. Justice Field, in the case of Wharton v. Wise, in the Supreme Court of the United States, 153 U.S. 155, 14 S.Ct. 783, 38 L.Ed. 669. It may be noted that there is one exception to the fact heretofore stated, that the Compact had nothing to do with boundaries. Prior to its execution, the first Virginia Constitution, adopted June 29, 1776, surrendered the claims of Virginia to the territories contained within her charter, included in the erection of the colonies of Maryland, Pennsylvania, North and South Carolinas, 'except the free navigation and use of the rivers Patomaque and Pokomoke, with the property of the Virginia shores and strands, bordering on either of said rivers, and all improvements, which have been, and shall be made thereon.' This claim was not accepted by Maryland, which claimed all the property on the Virginia shores of the Potomac to the high-water mark. But in the case of State of Maryland v. State of West Virginia, 217 U.S. 577, 30 S.Ct. 630, Morris v. United States,
174 U.S. 196, 19 S.Ct. 649 43 L.Ed. 946, it had been held that the grant to Lord Baltimore included the Potomac River to high-water mark on the Virginia shore. But the Supreme Court in the State of Maryland v. State of West Virginia case, supra, said that the privileges reserved in the Compact were inconsistent with the former Maryland claim, that the boundary was the high-water mark on the south side of the Potomac, and that Maryland, since that time, had never claimed any rights to make grants on that side...
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