James Abbott v. James Brown

• Decision Date: 12 June 1916
• Docket Number: No. 611,611
• Citation: 60 L.Ed. 1199,241 U.S. 606,36 S.Ct. 689
• Parties: JAMES J. ABBOTT, Appt., v. JAMES C. BROWN, United States Marshal in and for the Southern District of Florida
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

241 U.S. 606

36 S.Ct. 689

60 L.Ed. 1199

JAMES J. ABBOTT, Appt.,

v JAMES C. BROWN, United States Marshal in and for the Southern District of Florida.

No. 611.

Argued April 13, 1916.

Decided June 12, 1916.

Mr. Charles B. Parkhill for appellant.

Assistant Attorney General Wallace for appellee.

Mr. Justice Pitney delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an appeal from a final order discharging a writ of habeas corpus and remanding appellant to the custody of the United States marshal. The facts are as follows: Appellant was indicted in the United States district court for the southern district of Florida, at Tampa for a violation of a section of the Criminal Code, and in the month of March, 1912, was tried and found guilty. On the 12th day of the same month he was sentenced to confinement in the penitentiary at Atlanta for the term of one year and six months. On the same day, and after passing the sentence, the court entered the following order: 'Ordered that court be adjourned in accordance with general rule No. 1, and all orders and other matters be entered as of the term. Thereupon court is adjourned as ordered.' After the entry of this order, Judge Locke, the district judge, went to Jacksonville, in the same district, and the deputy clerk noted on the minutes from day to day that court was open in accordance with general rule No. 1, after which he entered orders made from time to time by the court in vacation. On May 24, 1912, appellant filed a motion for a new trial upon the ground of newly discovered evidence, with several affidavits in support of it. On June 26 Judge Locke, at Jacksonville, granted this motion, and made a proper order, pursuant to which appellant was brought to trial on February 11, 1913, when the jury disagreed. He was again tried on March 13, 1914, and the jury returned a verdict of not guilty. Thereafter, and in February, 1915, the persons who had made the affidavits in support of the motion for a new trial were indicted for perjury, and appellant was indicted for subornation of perjury. Appellant demurred to this indictment and moved to quash it upon the ground that Judge Locke had no jurisdiction to grant a new trial because the motion was not filed within four days after the verdict. The demurrer and motion to quash were heard by the then presiding judge, who sustained the demurrer and quashed the indictment upon the ground that Judge Locke had no power or authority, after the making of the adjournment order of March 12, 1912, to vacate or set aside the sentence passed upon appellant on that date.

Thereafter, and on March 20, 1915, the government procured a commitment to be issued upon the original judgment of conviction, and it is under this writ that appellant is now held in custody.

Two questions arise: (1) Were the order for a new trial, and the trial proceedings had thereunder, null and void? (2) If not, should they nevertheless be so regarded as against appellant, because of what he did in obtaining the quashing of the indictment for subornation of perjury?

Under the first head, counsel for appellee cites a rule of the district court, reading thus: 'Motions for new trials shall be made within four days after the entry of the verdict, during which time no judgment shall be entered, except by leave of court,' etc. We find in the record no evidence that there was such a rule; but, assuming we may take judicial notice of its existence, it was a mere regulation of practice, and a breach of it would be, at the utmost, a mere error of procedure, not affecting the jurisdiction.

The principal insistence, and the ground upon which the court rested the decision that is now under review, is that the adjournment order of March 12 brought the term to an end, so far as criminal business was concerned, and left the court without jurisdiction to entertain the motion of May 24, or grant a new trial thereon, because a court of law cannot set aside or alter its final judgment after the expiration of the term at which it was rendered, except pursuant to an application made within the term. United States v. Mayer, 235 U. S. 55, 67, 59 L. ed. 129, 135, 35 Sup. Ct. Rep. 16.

The order of March 12 must be read in connection with the general rule to which it refers, and this must be interpreted in the light of the law regulating the terms and the business of the court. General rule No. 1 is as follows:

'The law requiring the court to be always open for the transaction of certain kinds of business which may be transacted under the statutes, and under the orders of the judge, who may at the time be absent from the place in which the court is held, and which business can be transacted by the clerk under the orders of the judge, and is transacted from day to day in the court, it is ordered that, pending the temporary absence of the presiding judge of this district from the district, or the division of the district in which business is presented to be transacted, the clerk be present, either by himself or his deputy, daily, for the transaction of business, and upon such days as there is business to be transacted the court be opened, and that a record of the same be entered upon each of said days upon the minutes.'

The provisions of law referred to are to be found in the Judicial Code (act of March 3, 1911, chap. 231, 36 Stat. at L. 1087, Comp. Stat. 1913, § 1061), of which § 76 divides the state of Florida into two districts, northern and southern, and provides: 'Terms of the district court for the southern district shall be held at Ocala on the third Monday in January; at Tampa on the second Monday in February; at Key West on the first Mondays in May and November; at Jacksonville on...