In re Parte

• Decision Date: 10 February 1881
• Citation: 9 Mo.App. 540
• Parties: EX PARTE JOHN BUCKNER.
• Court: Missouri Court of Appeals

9 Mo.App. 540

EX PARTE JOHN BUCKNER.

St. Louis Court of Appeals, Missouri.

Feb. 10, 1881.

When St. Louis County was by the Legislature attached to the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit, the St. Louis Criminal Court was divested of jurisdiction in that county, and the Circuit Court thereof acquired exclusive criminal jurisdiction therein, unaffected by the statute of 1855 creating the St. Louis Criminal Court and depriving the St. Louis Circuit Court of original criminal jurisdiction.

APPLICATION for habeas corpus.

Prisoner remanded.

ZACH. MITCHELL, for the petitioner.

JOHN R. WARFIELD, contra.

BAKEWELL, J., delivered the opinion of the court.

The return shows that the body of the petitioner is detained by the sheriff of St. Louis County in the jail of that county, by virtue of a warrant issued by the Circuit Court of that county upon an indictment returned by the grand jurors of that county charging the prisoner with burning a school-house.

It is contended that the return is insufficient, because, it is said, the Circuit Court of St. Louis County has no criminal jurisdiction. The criminal jurisdiction which in this instance has been exercised by the Circuit Court of St. Louis County is exclusively vested, we are told, in the St. Louis Criminal Court. This is the only question presented for our consideration by the petition, return, and demurrer in this case.

At the time of the adoption of the existing Constitution of this State, in 1875, the city of St. Louis was within the county of St. Louis, and a part of that political subdivision of the State. The St. Louis Criminal Court then existed, having been created by an act for that purpose, approved November 29, 1855. Acts St. Louis County, 89. The act gave to that court jurisdiction coextensive with the county of St. Louis as it then existed, and vested in it all the original and appellate jurisdiction in criminal cases then vested in the several Circuit Courts of the State, and further provided that thereafter the Circuit Court of St. Louis County should not exercise original jurisdiction in any criminal case.

The Constitution of 1875 declares that the judicial power of the State shall be vested in a Supreme Court, the St. Louis Court of Appeals, Circuit Courts, Criminal Courts, Probate Courts, County Courts, and municipal corporation courts, and declares that the Circuit Courts shall have jurisdiction over all criminal cases not otherwise provided for by law.

The framers of that Constitution set forth amongst its provisions a Scheme for enlarging the limits of the city of St. Louis and then detaching the territory comprised within its enlarged limits from the county of St. Louis, divesting the city of county government. This Scheme was adopted by a vote of the people of the city and county, and went into effect October 22, 1876, and all special legislative enactments relating to St. Louis County inconsistent with the new order of things were, by the terms of the Constitution itself, repealed. Const., Art. IX., sect. 20; The State ex rel. v. Walsh, 69 Mo. 411.

The Constitution, however, provides (Art. IX., sect. 24) that “the county and city of St. Louis as now existing shall continue to constitute the Eighth Judicial Circuit, and the jurisdiction of all courts of record, except the County Court, shall continue until otherwise provided by law.” And the Scheme provided (sects. 27, 30) that the grand jury of the Eighth Judicial Circuit (being the circuit in which the city and county then were) shall be selected by the judge of the St. Louis Criminal Court from the city and county of St. Louis, and the petit jurors be summoned as provided by the then existing law, until otherwise provided by law.

By act of the Legislature approved April 28, 1877 (Acts 1877, p. 207), it was provided that the Eighth Judicial Circuit shall consist of the city of St. Louis, and that the Nineteenth Judicial Circuit shall consist of the counties of St. Louis, St. Charles, Lincoln, and Warren. This provision recognizes the new political subdivision of the State which had been carved out of the old St. Louis County and which still retained that name, and in effect created for that county, which was a different subdivision of the State from the original county, a new Circuit Court, and gave to that court criminal jurisdiction over a territory which, up to that time, had been subject to the jurisdiction of the St. Louis Criminal Court; and the enactment was manifestly intended to restrict, and...