Jett v. Commonwealth

• Citation: 59 Va. 933
• Parties: JETT v. THE COMMONWEALTH.
• Decision Date: 08 November 1867
• Court: Virginia Supreme Court

59 Va. 933

JETT v. THE COMMONWEALTH.

Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia.

November 8, 1867

1. A State court has jurisdiction to punish an act made an offence by the laws of the State, though the same act is made an offence by a law of the Congress of the United States.

2. A State court has jurisdiction to punish the offence of attempting to pass a forged note purporting to be a note of one of the national banks of the United States.

At the May term 1867 of the Circuit Court of Pittsylvania county William P. Jett was indicted for feloniously uttering and attempting to employ as true a forged bank note of one of the national banks. The indictment is as follows:

The jurors for the Commonwealth of Virginia, empannelled and sworn in said court for the body of the county aforesaid upon their oath present: That William P. Jett, late of the county aforesaid, on the 26th day of January, 1867, and in the said county of Pittsylvania, feloniously did utter and attempt to employ as true to John L. Hurt a certain false and forged note, commonly called a bank note or national currency, purporting to be a true and genuine note of the denomination of twenty dollars, number 37,838, dated Philadelphia, Pa., March 7th, 1864; and also purporting that the Fourth National Bank of Philadelphia will pay twenty dollars to bearer on demand--Pennsylvania; and also purporting to be signed by William P. Hamm, president, and Samuel J. Hoe Mellan, cashier, with intent to defraud the said John L. Hurt; he, the said William P. Jett, at the time he uttered and attempted to employ as true the said last mentioned forged note, to wit: on the day and year aforesaid in the county aforesaid, well knowing the same to be forged against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth.

And the jurors aforesaid, upon their oath aforesaid, do further present: that the said William P. Jett, heretofore, to wit: on the 26th day of January, in the year 1867, at the county aforesaid, feloniously did utter and attempt to employ as true to John L. Hurt, a certain false and forged bank note for the payment of twenty dollars, purporting to be a true and genuine note for the payment of twenty dollars of the Fourth National Bank of Philadelphia, the same being a banking company authorized by law, with intent to defraud the said John L. Hurt; he, the said William P. Jett, then and there knowing, to wit: on the year and day last aforesaid, the said false and forged note to be false and forged, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth.

At the same term of the court he was tried, and on the trial the Commonwealth, having proved that the prisoner had passed to John L. Hurt the note mentioned in the indictment, called John M. Johnson as a witness. He stated that he had been a bank officer for a long time, and had been in the habit of receiving and paying out large sums of bank notes of different banks in and out of the State. That he only knew by reputation that there was such a bank as the Fourth National Bank of Philadelphia; that he could not say certainly he had ever seen any of the notes of that bank; had had no correspondence with its officers, and did not know the signature of its president and cashier; but that the plates of the bank notes of all the national banks are kept in the Treasury Department of the United States, and that all their notes are issued from the Treasury Department to the several banks; and the only difference in the notes of the different banks is in the signatures of their respective officers. That he was a judge of the genuine notes of the national banks, and could distinguish them from spurious notes on said banks without knowing the signatures of the officers; and that he had frequently seen genuine notes on different national banks of the same plate as that of which the note in question purports to be assimilated.

The Commonwealth then offered to prove by the witness that the note described in the indictment was a forged and spurious note. But the prisoner objected to the evidence, on the ground that the witness did not have sufficient knowledge of the notes of the Fourth National Bank of Philadelphia to speak upon the subject. But the court overruled the objection, and permitted the proof to go to the jury, to have such weight with them as they might think it entitled to have from the knowledge of the witness on the subject. And thereupon the prisoner excepted.

The jury found the prisoner guilty, and fixed the term of his imprisonment in the penitentiary at three years. And then the prisoner moved in arrest of judgment on the grounds:

1. Because it appears upon the face of the indictment, that the offence charged is one of which the United States courts have exclusive cognizance under the act of Congress, entitled " an act to establish the judicial courts of the United States," approved 24th September, 1789; and under a further act of Congress, entitled " an act to provide a national currency, secured by a pledge of United States bonds, and to provide for the circulation and redemption thereof," approved 3d June, 1864; and that the courts of the State of Virginia have therefore no jurisdiction to try and punish said offence.

2d. Because the note, as to which the said false uttering is charged in said indictment to have been committed is insufficiently described in the second count thereof, and that therefore no judgment can be legally entered therein; and for these reasons, he prays that judgment against him may be arrested.

But the court overruled the motion, and sentenced the prisoner in accordance with the verdict. And he thereupon applied to this court for a writ of error; which was awarded.

C. E. Dabney and Barksdale, for the prisoner.

The Attorney General and Turner, for the Commonwealth.

The case is so fully argued by the judges that the argument of the counsel is omitted.

RIVES J.

The indictment in this case sets forth the offence of passing a counterfeit note of the Fourth National Bank of Philadelphia, knowing it to be so, under the Code, ch. 193, § 3, p. 797, making " the uttering of a forged note or bill of a banking company, knowing it to be, & c.," punishable by confinement in the penitentiary not less than two nor more than ten years.

In an act of Congress entitled " an act to provide a national currency, secured by a pledge of United States bonds, and to provide for the circulation and redemption thereof," the same act thus indicted is made punishable by " imprisonment at hard labor for a period not less than five nor more than seven years, and by fine in a sum not exceeding one thousand dollars." Acts Thirty-eighth Cong. Sess. 1, ch. 106, § 59.

This collocation of these separate enactments shows, at a glance, that the same act--namely, the passing, with a guilty knowledge, of forged bank bills, has been made an offence, both by this State and the Congress of the United States. The State law, though anterior to the creation of the national banks, and consequently to the existence of their notes, employs nevertheless language of such general and comprehensive import as to embrace the note of a banking company, whensoever or by whomsoever created, or wheresoever situated.

If this act of passing this counterfeit bank bill is to be deemed one and the same offence, whether viewed in reference to the criminal code of the States or the criminal laws of the United States, then it would be conceded, I presume, that it was exclusively cognizable by the United States courts. The constitution of the United States, in Art. 111, § 2, ch. 1, extends " the judicial power to all cases, in law and equity, arising under this constitution, the laws of the United States, " & c. The judiciary act of 24th September, 1789, after giving to the circuit courts jurisdiction concurrently with the several States of civil suits, & c., declares, they " shall have exclusive cognizance of all crimes and offences cognizable under the authority of the United States, except where this act otherwise provides, or the laws of the United States shall otherwise direct," & c.

Now, if this offence is defined and punished by the law of the United States of 3d June, 1864, it follows, as a necessary consequence, that it is within the exclusive jurisdiction of the Federal courts. Feely's case, 1 Va. Cas. 321, is an authority for this position. It was an indictment for larceny of packages out of the mail of the United States, " contrary to the form of the act of Congress of the United States in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth." It was a solecism on the face of the indictment; and the court unanimously decided " that, as the offence described in the indictment was created by act of Congress, the State court had not jurisdiction thereof." And I presume the same judgment would have been given if the indictment had been differently and more adroitly framed, so as to aver a larceny out of facts really constituting a robbery of the mail.

The principle of exclusive jurisdiction in the Federal courts however, allows of this exception, that the laws of Congress may save to the State courts a concurrent jurisdiction. When this is done, it is not to be considered as a grant of jurisdiction from Congress, and therefore null, as in Jackson v. Rose, 2 Va. Cas. 34; but simply as restoring to the States a jurisdiction originally possessed by them concurrently with the Federal courts; and by virtue of the express provision in the judiciary act of 1789, enabling Congress to make such exception to " the exclusive cognizance of crimes, " & c. Notable instances of this saving under the acts of Congress existed in relation to the offences of counterfeiting coin and forging notes of the United States Bank, & c....