Joseph Forsyth, Plaintiff In Error v. the United States

• Decision Date: 01 January 1850
• Citation: 13 L.Ed. 262,50 U.S. 571,9 How. 571
• Parties: JOSEPH FORSYTH, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. THE UNITED STATES
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

50 U.S. 571

9 How. 571

13 L.Ed. 262

JOSEPH FORSYTH, PLAINTIFF IN ERROR, v. THE UNITED STATES.

January Term, 1850

THIS case was brought up, by a writ of error, from the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Florida.

The facts in the case are sufficiently set forth in the opinion of the court.

Mr. Justice NELSON delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a motion by the Attorney-General, on behalf of the United States, to dismiss the writ of error for want of jurisdiction, it having been taken out in a criminal case to bring up a judgment on an indictment for cutting timber upon government lands.

The indictment was returned by the grand jury, at the October term, 1845, of the Superior Court of the District of West Florida, in the late Territory of Florida, in the County of Escambia, and was founded upon the act of Congress passed March 2, 1831, entitled 'An act to provide for the punishment of offences committed in cutting, destroying, or removing liveoak and other timber or trees reserved for naval purposes.'

The prisoner was arrested by a bench warrant issued upon the indictment on the 5th of November, 1845; but was taken out of the custody of the marshal by virtue of a writ of habeas corpus issued from the Circuit Court of the State of Florida, at the November term, 1845, of that court, and discharged from the arrest.

He was afterwards arrested on an alias bench warrant, issued by the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of the State of Florida, on the 7th of February, 1848; and at the March term thereafter of the court was arraigned, and pleaded not guilty.

Previous to the trial, a motion was made on behalf of the prisoner to quash the indictment, on the ground,——

1. That it was found in the late Superior Court of the District of West Florida by a grand jury impanelled at the October term, 1845, of said court, it being after the admission of the Territory of Florida into the Union as a State, and therefore that neither the court nor the grand jury thereof had jurisdiction over the offence, or authority to find the indictment.

2. That the act of Congress of March 2, 1831, under which the indictment was found, prohibited the cutting of timber only on land reserved for the use of the navy of the United States, and on none other.

This motion was denied, and the case ordered for trial.

The jury found the prisoner guilty, and assessed the value of the timber cut by him at sixty-one dollars. And thereupon the court pronounced judgment, that the be imprisoned for one day, and pay a fine of two hundred and fifty dollars, and the costs of the prosecution, which were taxed at $299.27.

The proceedings before us have been brought up on a writ of error to this judgment; and the question is, whether there is any act of Congress conferring authority upon this court to review them in this form, or in any other.

The Judiciary Act of 1789 (1 Stat. at Large, 73) made no provision for the revision of judgments of the Circuit or District Courts in criminal cases; and as the cases in which the appellate jurisdiction of this court can be exercised depend upon the regulation of Congress, it followed that no appeal or writ of error would lie. United States v. Moore, 3 Cranch, 159; 7 Wheat. 38; Ex parte Kearney, 3 Peters, 201.

The act of Congress passed 29th April, 1802 (2 Stat. at Large, 156), which provided for a certificate to this court of the point, in case of a division of opinion in the Circuit Court, embraced cases in which the opinions were opposed in criminal as well as in civil trials; and since that act, questions of law in criminal cases have occasionally been the subject of examination here for the instruction of the courts below (Ibid., p. 159, § 6). United States v. Tyler, 7 Cranch, 285; The Same v. Wiltberger, 5 Wheat. 76; The same v. Smith, Ibid. 153; The Same v. Holmes, Ibid. 412; The Same v. Marigold, ante, p. 560.

There is no general law, therefore, upon which a revision of the judgment in this case can be maintained; and the only question is, whether, in a peculiar class of cases, to which this belongs, a writ of error is specially provided for by the act of Congress passed February 22, 1847 (Sess. Laws, 1847, ch. 17).

It is insisted, on the part of the plaintiff in error, that the case is embraced in the eighth section of that act.

It is an act entitled 'An act to regulate the exercise of the appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in certain cases.' The previous sections of the act provide for the transfer of the records of the proceedings, including the judgments and decrees of all cases not appropriately belonging to State jurisdiction, pending in the Superior Courts or Court of Appeals, in the Territory of Florida, on the 3d of March, 1845 (the date of her admission into the Union), into the District Court of the United States for the State of Florida; and also for the hearing and decision of all cases on writs of error and appeals that had before been brought into the...