Hallinger v. Davis
| Decision Date | 28 November 1892 |
| Docket Number | No. 1,100,1,100 |
| Parties | HALLINGER v. DAVIS, County Jailer |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
On the 30th day of May, A. D. 1892, the appellant, Edward W. Hallinger, presented a petition to the circuit court of the United States for the district of New Jersey, wherein, and in a copy of the record of the proceedings in the court of oyer and terminer and general jail delivery of the county of Hudson, state of New Jersey, attached to said petition as part thereof, the following facts appear:
Hallinger, the appellant, was on the 14th day of April, 1891, indicted by the grand jury of Hudson county for the murder of one Mary Hallinger. On the 14th day of April, 1891, he pleaded guilty; whereupon the court ordered the said plea of guilty to be held in abeyance, subject to said defendant's consultation with counsel, then assigned for the purpose of consultation concerning said plea. On the 17th day of April, A. D. 1891, the defendant and his counsel again appeared and insisted on said plea of guilty; whereupon the said court continued said assignment of counsel, and ordered said defendant to be present on Tuesday, April 28, 1891, at an examination to determine the degree of guilt under said plea to be then and there had by said court. On the 28th day of April, 1891, the court, composed of Knapp and Lippincott, justices, in the presence of the defendant and his counsel, heard evidence concerning the degree of defendant's guilt; and on the 12th day of May, 1891, the court adjudged the defendant guilty of murder in the first degree, and committed him to the custody of the jailer of Hudson county, to be confined in the common jail of said county until Tuesday, the 30th day of June, A. D. 1891, on which day he was condemned to be hanged.
Article 1, § 7, of the constitution of the state of New Jersey, provides: 'The right of a trial by jury shall remain inviolate, but the legislature may authorize the trial of civil suits, when the matter in dispute does not exceed fifty dollars, by a jury of six men.' Section 68 of the criminal procedure act of the state of New Jersey provides: 'All murder which shall be perpetrated by means of poison, or by lying in wait, or by any other kind of willful, deliberate, and premenditated killing, or which shall be committed in perpetrating or in attempting to perpetrate any arson, rape, sodomy, robbery, or burglary, shall be deemed murder in the first degree; and all other kinds of murder shall be deemed murder of the second degree; and the jury, before whom any person indicted for murder shall be tried, shall, if they find such person guilty thereof, designate by their verdict whether it be murder of the first or second degree; but, if such person shall be convicted on confession in open court, the court shall proceed, by examination of witnesses, to determine the degree of the crime, and give sentence accordingly.' In his said petition the defendant alleged that said section 68 of the criminal procedure act of New Jersey is in violation of the constitution of the United States and of the state of New Jersey, and that his sentence and detention are illegal. He also states that, by virtue of the statutes and laws of the state of New Jersey, no right of appeal in murder cases exists, and he has no right to appeal to any higher court in the state to review or annul said illegal judgment and sentence.
On the 30th day of May, 1892, this application for a writ of habeas corpus was by the circuit court of the United States for the district of New Jersey refused.
B. F. Rice, for appellant.
C. H. Winfield, for appellee.
It is contended on behalf of the appellant that the judgment and sentence of the court of oyer and terminer of Hudson county, N. J., whereby he is deprived of his liberty and condemned to be hanged, are void, because the act of criminal procedure of the state of New Jersey, in pursuance of the provisions of which such judgment and sentence were rendered, is repugnant to the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States, which is in these words: 'Nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.' Such repugnancy is supposed to be found in the proposition that a verdict by a jury is an essential part in prosecutions for felonies, without which the accused cannot be said to have been condemned by 'due process of law;' and that any act of a state legislature providing for the trial of felonies, otherwise than by a common-law jury, composed of 12 men, would be unconstitutional and void.
Upon the question of the right of one charged with crime to waive a trial by jury, and elect to be tried by the court, when there is a positive legislative enactment, giving the right so to do, and conferring power on the court to try the accused in such a case, there are numerous decisions by state courts upholding the validity of such proceeding. Dailey v. State, 4 Ohio St. 57; Dillingham v. State, 5 Ohio St. 280; People v. Noll, 20 Cal. 164; State v. Wordn, 46 Conn. 349; State v. Albee, 61 N. H. 428.
If a recorded confession of every material everment of an indictment puts the confessor upon the country, the institution of jury trial and the legal effect and nature of a plea of guilty have been very imperfectly understood, not only by the authors of the constitution and their successors down to the present time, but also by all the generations of men who have lived under the common law. It is only necessary, in order to determine whether the legislature transcended its power in the act, to inquire whether it is prohibited by the constitition. The right of the accused to a trial was not affected, and we can therefore have no doubt that the proceeding to ascertain the degree of the crime where, in an indictment for murder, the defendant enters a plea of guilty, is constitutional and valid. Statutes of like or similar import have been enacted in many of the states, and have never been held unconstitutional. On the other hand, they have been repeatedly and uniformly held to be constitutional.
In Ohio, the statute is: 'If the offense charged is murder, and the accused be convicted by confession in open court, the court shall examine the witnesses and determine the legree of the crime, and pronounce sentence accordingly.' In Dailey v. State, 4 Ohio St. 57, the statute was held to be constitutional, and a sentence thereunder valid.
The statute of California in relation to this subject is in the identical language of the statute of New Jersey. In People v. Noll, 20 Cal. 164, the defendant on arraignment pleaded guilty. Thereupon witnesses were examined to ascertain the degree of the crime. The court found it to be murder in the first degree, and sentenced him accordingly. One of the errors assigned was that, after the plea of guilty by the defendant, the court did not call a jury to hear evidence and determine the degree of guilt. The supreme court held:
In Connecticut, the act of 1874 provided that in all prosecutions the party accused, if he should so elect, might be tried by the court instead of by the jury, and that, in such cases, the court should have full power to try the case and render judgment. In State v. Worden, 46 Conn. 349, this statute was held not to conflict with the provisions of the state constitution, that every person accused 'shall have a speedy trial by an impartial jury, and that the right of trial by jury shall remain inviolate.'
And, of course, the decision in the present case, of the highest court of the state of New Jersey having jurisdiction, that the statute is constitutional and valid, sufficiently and finally establishes that proposition, unless the proceedings in the case did not constitute 'due process of law,' within the meaning of the fourteenth amendment of the constitution of the United States.
That phrase is found in both the fifth and the fourteenth amendments. In the fifth amendment the provision is only a limitation of the power of the general government; it has no application to the legislation of the several states. Barron v. Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243. But in the fourteenth amendment the provision is extended in terms to the states. The decisions already cited sufficiently show that the state courts hold that trials had under the provisions of statutes authorizing persons accused of felonies to waive a jury trial, and to submit the degree of their guilt to the determination of the courts, and 'due process of law.' While those decisions are not conclusive upon this court, yet they are entitled to our respectful consideration.
The meaning and effect of this clause have already received the frequent attention of this...
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