Ex Parte Jones

• Decision Date: 30 April 1887
• Citation: 4 S.W. 639
• Parties: <I>Ex parte</I> JONES.
• Court: Arkansas Supreme Court

Page 639

4 S.W. 639

Ex parte JONES.

Supreme Court of Arkansas.

April 30, 1887.

Appeal from chancery court, Pulaski county.

Petition for habeas corpus.

The appellant pro se. Dan. W. Jones, Atty. Gen., for the State.

SMITH, J.

Jones applied to the Pulaski chancery court for the writ of habeas corpus, alleging that he was restrained of his liberty by the sheriff of Cleveland county, under process upon an indictment which charged him with the murder of one Barrett; that said murder, if committed at all, was done in Cleveland county in the year 1886, on the East side of the Saline river; that, after said indictment against petitioner had been returned into court, the legislature, by an act approved April 4, 1887, had divided said county into two judicial districts,—the Eastern and Western,—between which said river was the dividing line; that it was provided in and by said act that courts of justice should be held, for the Eastern district, at Toledo, and for the Western district at Kingsland, and the authority and jurisdiction of each of said courts were expressly limited to the territory respectively embraced therein, but no time was fixed by that act, or by any other law, for holding the circuit court in the Eastern district, by reason whereof it was impossible to try petitioner's case.

As an excuse for applying to the chancellor, it was alleged that the circuit judge of the Tenth circuit, which includes Cleveland county, was absent from the state. But the writ was refused. It is immaterial whether the allegation that Barrett was killed East of the river be true or false; because, in either event, according to the view we have taken, the petitioner has no forum for his trial, if the act is allowed to stand. At the date of the passage of this act, Toledo was the county-seat of Cleveland county, and the circuit court for the county was to be held there on the second Monday in March and September of each year. See act of March 24, 1885, (Sess. Acts 1885, p. 127.) The act of April 4, 1887, recognizes Toledo as the county-seat, and directs the circuit court for the Eastern district of the county to be held there, "as now provided by law, except as hereafter provided." Section 10 of the same act fixes the terms of the circuit court of the Western district at Kingsland, also on the second Monday of March and September. Now it is a physical impossibility for the circuit judge to be in two different places at the same time. And according to the theory of the constitution of our courts, as explained in State v. Williams, 48 Ark. ___, 2 S. W. Rep. 843, two circuit courts cannot be going forward in the same circuit at one and the same time; and, as the act of 1887 is the latest expression of the legislative will, it repeals the act of 1885, fixing the time for holding the circuit court in Cleveland county, unless the later act is unconstitutional. Parker v. Sanders, ...