Collins v. Robbins

• Decision Date: 21 November 1951
• Citation: 84 A.2d 536,147 Me. 163
• Parties: COLLINS v. ROBBINS, Warden.
• Court: Maine Supreme Court

Page 536

84 A.2d 536

147 Me. 163

COLLINS v.ROBBINS, Warden.

Supreme Judicial Court of Maine.

Nov. 21, 1951.

Christopher S. Roberts, Rockland, for petitioner.

Frank F. Harding, Curtis M. Payson, County Atty., Rockland, for State.

Argued before MURCHIE, C. J., and THAXTER, FELLOWS, MERRILL, NULTY and WILLIAMSON, JJ.

NULTY, Justice.

Habeas corpus proceedings from Knox County Supreme Judicial Court in vacation and brought forward to this court on report upon facts agreed, R.S.1944, Chap. 91, Sec. 14, and certified for immediate decision by agreement of Counsel.Wade v. Warden of State Prison, 145 Me. ----, 73 A.2d 128.The facts disclosed by the record are:

Dennis Collins, a minor, brought a petition for a writ of habeas corpus against Allan L. Robbins, Warden of the Maine State Prison, in usual form on July 24, 1951, and, on said petition the writ of habeas corpus was ordered to issue forthwith.On the same day the Warden produced the body of Dennis Collins before the court and made the usual return, attaching thereto a certified copy of the mittimus under which said Dennis Collins was detained.A brief hearing was had in which Dennis Collins testified that at the time of his indictment for the murder of his fatherhe was thirteen years old and that the date of his birth was February 23, 1937.

The record as reported includes the petition for the writ, the writ, the return of the writ by the Warden of the State Prison, with a certified copy of the mittimus, the record of the original case in Knox County Superior Court and the facts taken out at the hearing.It also includes a stipulation that said Dennis Collins was arraigned in the Rockland Municipal Court on October 30, 1950, on the charge of murder and that he was bound over to the grand jury of the Superior Court, November Term, Knox County, 1950.

The Knox County records of the Superior Court for the November Term, 1950, disclose that the grand jury indicted Dennis Collins for murder and that Counsel was appointed by the court to represent said Dennis Collins.Upon arraignment said Dennis Collins pleaded guilty to the crime of manslaughter which plea the court accepted and sentenced him to be confined to hard labor in the State Prison at Thomaston for the term of not less than five years and not more than ten years and a mittimus for his commitment was duly issued and said Dennis Collins was duly committed under said mittimus.

The petition for the writ of habeas corpus alleges in the usual form that the petitioner, Dennis Collins, is now unlawfully imprisoned in the Maine State Prison at Thomaston, and the Petitioner, Dennis Collins, now contends that the Superior Court for the County of Knox, when it accepted his plea of manslaughter to the indictment charging murder, was without jurisdiction to impose sentence because judges of municipal courts within their respective jurisdictions have exclusive original jurisdiction of all offenses, except for a crime, the punishment for which may be imprisonment for life or any term of years committed by children under the age of 17 years.Thus, the petitioner's claim involves the construction of the second paragraph of R.S.1944, Chap. 133, Sec. 2, as amended byChap. 334 of the Public Laws of 1947, the pertinent part, as amended, reading as follows: 'Judges of municipal courts within their respective jurisdictions shall have exclusive original jurisdiction over all offenses, except for a crime the punishment for which may be imprisonment for life or for any term of years, committed by children under the age of 17 years, and when so exercising said jurisdiction shall be known as juvenile courts.Any adjudication or judgment under the provisions of sections 4 to 7, inclusive, shall be that the child was guilty of juvenile delinquency, and no such adjudication or judgment shall be deemed to constitute a conviction for crime.'No question is raised by the petitioner as to the jurisdiction of the Superior Court of Knox County over the crime of murder for which he was charged in the indictment found by the grand jury at the November 1950 Term.This court recently declared in Wade v. Warden of State Prison, supra, that murder was an offense clearly excepted from the jurisdiction of the juvenile courts and set forth at length in that exhaustive opinion the interpretation of Revised Statutes and Public Laws last cited with respect to the respective jurisdictions of the Superior and Municipal Courts over a juvenile charged with the crime of manslaughter.In other words, the petitioner's claim now is that he could not be legally sentenced after his accepted plea of manslaughter to an indictment charging him with murder because the Superior Court of Knox County by its action in accepting his plea of manslaughter was without jurisdiction to further act and dispose of the case, the exclusive original jurisdiction over the offense being by law vested in the Judges of the Municipal Courts.

The petitioner, Dennis Collins, was charged with murder.He was first taken before the Rockland Municipal Court, arraigned and bound over to the grand jury for the November 1950 Term of Knox County Superior Court.At that time the Superior Court of Knox County had exclusive original jurisdiction of this particular crime of murder, it being excepted in the act granting jurisdiction to the judges of the municipal courts over offenses committed by children under the age of seventeen years.SeeR.S.1944, Chap. 133, Sec. 2, as amended, supra.We, therefore, hold that the Superior Court of Knox County had exclusive original jurisdiction of the crime of murder.Therefore, at the time of the arraignment of the petitioner, Dennis Collins, for the crime of murder on the indictment found by the grand jury of said Knox County the jurisdiction of the Superior Court with respect to the crime charged was the same as if the so-called juvenile court laws referred to and cited herein had not been enacted.In other words, the jurisdiction of said Superior Court was in no way changed.SeeState v. Rand and Henry, 1934, 132 Me. 246, 250, 169 A. 898.

The question now before us seems to be, was the Superior Court for Knox County without jurisdiction to impose sentence when it accepted the petitioner's plea of guilty of manslaughter to the indictment charging murder?

It has long been accepted as a well known principle of law that 'the jurisdiction of a court depends upon the state of affairs existing at the time it is invoked, and if the jurisdiction once attaches to the person and subject matter of the litigation, the subsequent happening of events, though they are of such a character as would have prevented jurisdiction from attaching in the first instance, will not operate to oust the jurisdiction already attached.This is the statement of the rule that subsequent events will never defeat jurisdiction already acquired.'12 Encyclopedia of Pleading and Practice, Page 171.The Supreme Court of Missouri, in State v. Wear, 1898, 145 Missouri, 162, 205, 46 S.W. 1099, 1112, said, in speaking of jurisdiction: 'The pendency of a cause in a court where jurisdiction exists, and has been acquired in a lawful manner, is a test of the continuance of such jurisdiction, and of its valid exercise until final disposition is made of the cause, no matter how flagrant may be the errors which attend the exercise of such jurisdiction, nor how numerous and obvious may be the errors with which the record abounds, because, the jurisdiction to decide right, being once conceded, such concession necessarily embraces the power to decide wrong, and a wrong decision, though voidable, and though it may be avoided, yet until avoided is equally as binding as a right one.It cannot be attacked collaterally.The only way its binding force can be escaped or avoided is by appeal or writ of error.'The Court of Appeals of Kentucky, in Stewart, Pros.Atty. et al. v. Sampson, Judge et al., 1941, 285 Ky. 447, 148 S.W.2d 278, 280, 281, said in speaking of jurisdiction:

'The term (jurisdiction) applies to both the litigant in the cause and to its subject matter, by which is meant that a court, before it may exercise judicial power to determine a cause pending before it, must have authority to deal with and determine the questions relating to the subject matter of the litigation, and also must in some way have the litigant whose interest is involved in the subject matter properly brought into court, and which is usually designated as 'jurisdiction of the person.'Therefore (employing the usual terms with reference thereto), a court may not proceed to determine a matter before it unless it has 'jurisdiction of the person' as well as 'jurisdiction of the subject matter.'* * *

'To begin with, it should...