Kurtz v. Moffitt Moffitt v. Kurtz

• Decision Date: 23 November 1885
• Citation: 115 U.S. 487,29 L.Ed. 458,6 S.Ct. 148
• Parties: KURTZ v. MOFFITT and another. In Error to the Superior Court of the City and County of San Francisco and State of California. MOFFITT and another v. KURTZ. In Error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of California. Filed
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

115 U.S. 487

6 S.Ct. 148

29 L.Ed. 458

KURTZ v. MOFFITT and another.

In Error to the Superior Court of the City and County of San Francisco and State of California.

MOFFITT and another

v. KURTZ.

In Error to the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of California.

Filed November 23, 1885.

A writ of habeas corpus was issued on April 8, 1885, by and returnable before a judge of the superior court of the city and county of San Francisco in the state of California, addressed to John Moffitt and T. W. Fields, citizens of that state, upon the petition of Stephen Kurtz, a citizen of Pennsylvania, alleging that he was by them unlawfully imprisoned and restrained of his liberty, inasmuch as they had arrested him as a deserter from the army of the United States, and had no warrant or authority to arrest him, and were not officers of the United States. Moffitt and Fields, at the time of entering their appearance in that court, filed a petition to remove the case into the circuit court of the United States, because the parties were citizens of different states, and because the suit involved a ques- tion arising under the constitution and laws of the United States, to-wit, the question whether a person who is not an officer of the United States has authority to arrest a deserter from the army of the United States. The court ordered the case to be so removed.

Moffitt and Fields thereupon signed and filed in the circuit court the following return: 'Now come the respondents and make this, their return to the writ of habeas corpus herein, and show that respondent J. Moffitt is a regular police officer of the city and county of San Francisco, and respondent T. W. Fields is a special police officer of said city and county; and being such officers as aforesaid, they arrested the petitioner, Stephen Kurtz, in the city and county of San Francisco, by the authority of the United States, in this, to-wit, that said Stephen Kurtz, under the name of Stephen Noll, on the twenty-ninth day of May, 1876, at Cleveland, in the state of Ohio, enlisted in the army of the United States for the term of five years, and on the seventeenth day of March, 1879, he being a soldier attached to Co. D of the 21st regiment of infantry of the army of the United States, stationed at Vancouver barracks, in the territory of Washington, deserted from the army of the United States; and your respondents hold said petitioner for the purpose of delivering him to the military authorities of the United States to be tried according to the laws of the United States.' The circuit court, upon motion and hearing, made an order remanding the case to the superior court of San Francisco; and Moffitt and Fields sued out a writ of error from this court to reverse that order.

After the case had been so remanded, Kurtz filed in the superior court of San Francisco a suggestion that the return was insufficient, and that he was entitled to be discharged, for the following reasons: 'First. It appears by said return that the defendants were not officers of the United States, but are police officers of the municipality of San Francisco, and as such they have no authority to arrest or detain the plaintiff, and as such officers they have been and are prohibited from arresting or detaining the plaintiff as a deserter from the United States army by a rule of the police department which was in force at the time of the arrest of the plaintiff, and still is in force, which rule was and is as follows: 'Police officers are prohibited from arresting deserters from the United States army or navy without a warrant.' Second. The desertion set up in the return is an offense against the United States, and not against the state of California, of which commonwealth the defendants are officers, and they are therefore incompetent to arrest or detain the plaintiff. Third. The desertion set up in the return is barred by article 103 of section 1342 of the Revised Statutes of the United States.' The superior court, upon a hearing, ordered the writ of habeas corpus to be dismissed and Kurtz remanded to custody, and entered judgment accordingly; and he sued out a writ of error from this court to reverse that judgment, that court being the highest court of the state in which a decision on the merits of the case could be had. See Robb's Case 64 Cal. 431, 433, and 111 U. S. 624, 627; S. C. 4 Sup. Ct. Rep. 544; Barbier v. Connolly, 113 U.S. 27; S. C. 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 357.

W. G. Sieberst, for Kurtz.

S. W. Sanderson, for Moffitt and fields.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 489-494 intentionally omitted]

GRAY, J.

The first question to be considered is whether this case was rightly remanded to the state court, or should have been retained and decided in the circuit court of the United States, into which it had been removed on a petition filed under the act of March 3, 1875, c. 137, § 2. In order to justify the removal of a case from a state court into the circuit court under this act, it is not enough that it arises under the constitution and laws of the United States, or that it is between citizens of different states, but it must be a 'suit of a civil nature, at law or in equity, where the matter in dispute exceeds, exclusive of costs, the sum or value of five hundred dollars.' 18 St. 470. A writ of habeas corpus, sued out by one arrested for crime, is a civil suit or proceeding, brought by him to assert the civil right of personal liberty, against those who are holding him in custody as a criminal. Ex parte Tom Tong, 108 U. S. 556; S. C. 2 Sup. Ct. Rep. 871. To assist in determining whether it is, within the meaning of the act of 1875, a 'suit at law or in equity where the matter in dispute exceeds the sum or value of five hundred dollars,' it will be convenient to refer to the use and interpretation of like words in earlier acts defining the jurisdiction of the national courts.

The judiciary act of September 24, 1789, c. 20, § 22, authorized 'final judgments and decrees in civil actions and suits in equity in a circuit court, where the matter in dispute exceeds the sum or value of two thousand dollars, exclusive of costs,' to be revised by this court on writ of error or appeal. 1 St. 84. The act of April 2, 1816, c. 39, § 1, provided that no cause should be brought to this court by appeal or writ of error from the circuit court for the district of Columbia, 'unless the matter in dispute in such cause shall be of the value of one thousand dollars or upwards, exclusive of costs.' 3 St. 261.

In Lee v. Lee, 8 Pet. 44, decided in 1834, a petition to the circuit court for the District of Columbia set forth that the petitioners were entitled to their freedom, and were held in slavery by the defendant. He pleaded that they were not entitled to their freedom as they had alleged. Upon that plea issue was joined, and a verdict and judgment rendered for the defendant; and the petitioners sued out a writ of error. A preliminary objection to the jurisdiction of this court was overruled, and the judgment below considered on the merits, and reversed. The ground of the decision upon the question of jurisdiction appears to have been that the single matter in dispute between the parties was the freedom or slavery of the petitioners,—to the petitioners, the value of their freedom, not to be estimated in money; to the defendant, claiming to be their owner, the pecuniary value of the slaves as property, which, if he had been the plaintiff in error, might have been ascertained by affidavits. 8 Pet. 48.

In Barry v. Mercein, 5 How. 103, decided in 1847, this court dismissed for want of jurisdiction a writ of error to reverse a judgment of the circuit court for the Southern district of New York, refusing to grant to a father a writ of habeas corpus to take his child out of the custody of his wife, who was living apart from him. Chief Justice TANEY, in delivering the opinion, after quoting the twenty-second section of the judiciary act of 1789, said: 'In order, therefore, to give us appellate power under this section, the matter in dispute must be money, or some right the value of which in money can be estimated and ascertained.' 'The words of the act of congress are plain and unambiguous. They give the right of revision in those cases only where the rights of property are concerned, and where the matter in dispute has a known and certain value, which can be proved and calculated in the ordinary mode of a business transaction. There are no words in the law which by any just interpretation can be held to extend the appellate jurisdiction beyond those limits, and authorized us to take cognizance of cases to which no test of money value can be applied. Nor, indeed, is this limitation upon the appellate power of this court confined to cases like the one before us. It is the same in judgments in criminal cases, although the liberty or life of the party may depend on the decision of the circuit court. And since this court can exercise no appellate power unless it is conferred by act of congress, the writ of error in this case must be dismissed.' 5 How. 120, 121.

In Pratt v. Fitzhugh, 1 Black, 271, decided in 1861, this court dismissed, for want of jurisdiction, a writ of error to reverse a judgment of the circuit court for the Northern district of New York, discharging on habeas corpus persons imprisoned upon an execution issued by that court, directing the marshal to levy the amount of a decree for $21,581.28 out of their goods and chattels, and, for want thereof, to arrest and keep them until the moneys were paid. Mr. Justice NELSON, in delivering the opinion, said that the twenty-second section of the judiciary act had always been held to mean a property value; and he distinguished the case of Holmes v. Jennison, 14 Pet. 540, (which was a writ of error to reverse a judgment of the supreme court of Vermont on habeas corpus, remanding to custody a prisoner under a warrant of extradition from the governor of that...