Figueroa v. People of Puerto Rico

• Decision Date: 18 April 1956
• Docket Number: No. 4985.,4985.
• Citation: 232 F.2d 615
• Parties: Manuel FIGUEROA, Defendant, Appellant, v. The PEOPLE OF PUERTO RICO, Plaintiff, Appellee.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

232 F.2d 615 (1956)

Manuel FIGUEROA, Defendant, Appellant, v. The PEOPLE OF PUERTO RICO, Plaintiff, Appellee.

No. 4985.

United States Court of Appeals First Circuit.

April 18, 1956.

Santos P. Amadeo, Rio Piedras, P. R., with whom Rafael V. Perez-Marchand, Rio Piedras, P. R., was on brief, for appellant.

Federico Ramirez Ros, Asst. Pros. Atty., Santurce, P. R., with whom Jose Trias Monge, Atty. Gen., and Rafael L. Ydrach Yordan, Pros. Atty., San Juan, P. R., were on brief, for appellee.

Before MAGRUDER, Chief Judge, and BIGGS and WOODBURY, Circuit Judges.

MAGRUDER, Chief Judge.

Manuel Figueroa was tried and convicted in the Superior Court of Puerto Rico, Bayamón Part, of the felony of buying personal property knowing the same to have been stolen, an offense denounced in § 438 of the Penal Code of Puerto Rico (1937 ed.). The judgment of conviction was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, with an extensive opinion by Chief Justice Snyder which has been reproduced in 125 F.Supp. 821-830. Appeal was then taken to this court.

At the arraignment in the trial court, Figueroa entered a plea of not guilty and requested a trial by jury. When the case came on for trial the judge directed the clerk to call the jury, at which point counsel for the defendant arose and stated to the court: "After having conferred with the defendant we waive the trial by jury. The case will be tried by the court without a jury." Whereupon the trial proceeded before the judge alone, who found the defendant guilty as charged and sentenced him to a penitentiary term. The only question presented to the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico on appeal, and to this court, was whether the conviction could validly stand, based as it was upon a trial without a jury in the circumstances above related.

The Supreme Court of Puerto Rico held that the case was to be determined solely as a matter of the local law of Puerto Rico. It ruled that the right of trial by jury in felony cases, as conferred by Art. II, § 11 of the constitution of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, 48 U.S.C.A. § 731d note, was a right which could be waived by the accused, and that in the case at bar this right was competently waived in open court by counsel for the accused, speaking in his behalf in the manner above set forth. It rejected appellant's contentions that Art. II, § 11 of the constitution of the Commonwealth must be considered "a Federal law" just like the old Organic Act of 1917 enacted by the Congress, 39 Stat. 951; that the right to trial by jury so conferred must be deemed to have been intended by the Congress to be equivalent to the right of trial by jury conferred by Art. III, § 2, and by the Sixth Amendment, of the Constitution of the United States; and that this right may be validly waived only by the affirmative personal act of the accused himself, and not by his counsel, in the manner prescribed in Patton v. United States, 1930, 281 U.S. 276, 312, 50 S.Ct. 253, 74 L.Ed. 854, and by Rule 23(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, 18 U.S. C.A. It may be a question whether the Patton case really held that the federal constitutional right of trial by jury can be waived only by the personal act of the accused. Cf. Adams v. United States ex rel. McCann, 1942, 317 U.S. 269, 275, 277, 63 S.Ct. 236, 87 L.Ed. 268. Like the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico we so assume, without deciding the point, for purposes of the present case. Of course, Rule 23(a) F.R.Cr.P. does not apply to the insular courts of Puerto Rico.

Though the jurisdiction of this court over the present appeal has not been challenged by the Commonwealth government, we shall refer briefly to what we understand to be our continuing jurisdiction, notwithstanding the achievement by Puerto Rico of its commonwealth status pursuant to Public Law 600 of the 81st Congress, 64 Stat. 319, 48 U.S.C.A. §§ 731b-731e.

In the preamble to Public Law 600 the Congress stated its purpose to be to provide "for the organization of a constitutional government by the people of Puerto Rico." After reciting that "the Congress of the United States by a series of enactments has progressively recognized the right of self-government of the people of Puerto Rico", it was enacted "That, fully recognizing the principle of government by consent, this Act is now adopted in the nature of a compact so that the people of Puerto Rico may organize a government pursuant to a constitution of their own adoption." 48 U. S.C.A. § 731b. It was provided that there should be a referendum in which the people of Puerto Rico could vote for acceptance or rejection of the terms of the "compact" offered in Public Law 600. Upon approval by a majority of the voters, the legislature of Puerto Rico was authorized "to call a constitutional convention to draft a constitution" for the island. 48 U.S.C.A. § 731c. As to the content of the constitution, the only requirement was that it should provide a republican form of government and should include a bill of rights. Upon the adoption of such a constitution by the people of Puerto Rico, the President was authorized to transmit it to the Congress if he found that it conformed to the applicable provisions of Public Law 600 and of the Constitution of the United States. It was further provided that upon approval by the Congress the constitution should become effective in Puerto Rico in accordance with its terms. Public Law 600 also provided that, upon the coming into effect of the new constitution of Puerto Rico, there would be an automatic repeal of a large number of sections of the preexisting Organic Act of 1917, as amended, sections relating in general to matters of purely local concern, including the structure of the insular government. The remaining sections of the Organic Act were to be continued in effect as the "Puerto Rican Federal Relations Act."

At this time there was no provision in the Organic Act of 1917, as amended, defining the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit over appeals from decisions of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico. Section 43 of the Organic Act, which was merely a cross-reference to the jurisdictional sections of the Judicial Code of the United States, as amended, dealing with appellate jurisdiction over the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, had already been repealed by the Congress in 1948 when it revised, codified and enacted into law Title 28 of the United States Code, 62 Stat. 997. At the same time the Congress enacted as 28 U.S.C. § 1293 the following provision:

"The courts of appeals for the First and Ninth Circuits shall have jurisdiction of appeals from all final decisions of the supreme courts of Puerto Rico and Hawaii, respectively in all cases involving the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States or any authority exercised thereunder, in all habeas corpus proceedings, and in all other civil cases where the value in controversy exceeds $5,000, exclusive of interest and costs."

In Romero v. People of Puerto Rico, 1 Cir., 1950, 182 F.2d 864, 867, we pointed out that under 28 U.S.C. § 1293, in civil cases coming to us on appeal from final decisions of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico, and involving only questions of local law, including the interpretation of insular statutes, we had a technical appellate jurisdiction where the value in controversy exceeded $5,000, although in the exercise of that jurisdiction we were not permitted to reverse the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico on a point of local law unless the decision of that court in such regard was "inescapably wrong" or "patently erroneous." De Castro v. Board of Commissioners, 1944, 322 U.S. 451, 64 S.Ct. 1121, 88 L.Ed. 1384. But we further pointed out that in criminal cases, where the appeal from the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico involved a conviction for violation of an insular criminal statute, we had appellate jurisdiction only if the case involved "the Constitution, laws or treaties of the United States or any authority exercised thereunder" — or what might be called, in short, a federal question, which federal question needed to be a substantial one, properly presented in the court below, and not merely one of a frivolous nature.

Perhaps it can be said that in view of the present commonwealth status of Puerto Rico it would be more appropriate if the judgments of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico were reviewable only in the Supreme Court of the United States, on the same basis of jurisdiction as is presently given to the Supreme Court of the United States to review judgments of the highest court of a state. The Congress, however, has not seen fit to provide for such direct review in the Supreme Court of the United States; it may be that this is one of those loose ends left unprovided for in Public Law 600 which the Congress will tidy up in due time by further legislation. Meanwhile, since the Congress has given no evidence of an intention to withdraw our jurisdiction to review federal questions as conferred by 28 U.S.C. § 1293, we are satisfied that our jurisdiction in this respect remains unaffected. If we do not have such jurisdiction, then no court in the federal system, including the Supreme Court of the United States, could review federal questions in cases coming from the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico. Certainly there is no reason to suppose that Congress intended that consequence.

In what we now say with reference to our continuing jurisdiction in criminal cases, we do not wish to intimate any opinion as to whether we may still exercise jurisdiction in civil cases involving only questions of local law where the value in controversy exceeds $5,000. As we pointed out in De Castro v. Board of Commissioners, 1 Cir., 1943, 136 F.2d 419, affirmed 1944, 322 U.S. 451, 64 S. Ct. 1121, 88 L.Ed. 1384, this technical jurisdiction had become pretty much of a dead letter long before the coming into effect of the constitution or Puerto Rico pursuant to Public Law 600. It remains to be...