Miller v. State of Texas
| Decision Date | 14 May 1894 |
| Docket Number | No. 1,166,1,166 |
| Citation | 38 L.Ed. 812,14 S.Ct. 874,153 U.S. 535 |
| Parties | MILLER v. STATE OF TEXAS |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
This was an indictment against Franklin P. Miller in a court of the state of Texas for murder, on which he was convicted. The conviction was affirmed by the court of criminal appeals (20 S. W. 1103), and a rehearing of the appeal thereto was denied. Defendant brought error.
C. A. Culberson, Texas Atty. Gen., for the motion.
Jo. Abbott, opposed.
Mr. Justice BROWN, after stating the facts in the foregoing language, delivered the opinion of the court.
Motion is made to dismiss the writ of error in this upon the ground that it was issued and signed by the clerk of the court of criminal appeals of Texas, and was, therefore, insufficient to give this court jurisdiction, and the case of Bondurant v. Watson, 103 U.S. 278, is cited as authority for the position. In that case, however, the writ ran in the name of the chief justice of the supreme court of the state, to the clerk of that court, was tested in the name of the chief justice of the supreme court of the state, signed by its clerk, and sealed with the seal of that court. 'It had not,' said the court, 'a single requisite of a writ of this court.' Rev. St. § 999, provides that when a writ of error 'is issued by the supreme court to a state court, the citation shall be signed by the chief justice, or judge, or chancellor of such court, rendering the judgment or passing the decree complained of, or by a justice of the supreme court of the United States, and the adverse party shall have at least thirty days' notice;' and by section 1003 'writs of error from the supreme court to a state court in cases authorized by law shall be issued in the same manner, and under the same regulations and shall have the same effect as if the judgment or decree complained of had been rendered or passed in a court of the United States.'
In this case the writ runs in the name of the president of the United States to the judges of the court of criminal appeals, is tested in the name of the chief justice of the supreme court of the United States, signed by the clerk of the court of criminal appeals, and allowed by its presiding judge. If there was any error, it was in the signature of the writ by the clerk of the court of appeals, instead of by the clerk of this court, or of the circuit court of the United States for the proper district (Ex parte Ralston, 119 U. S. 613, 7 Sup. Ct. 317), and such error would be amendable under section 1005, which provides that the supreme court may allow an amendment of a writ of error in all particulars of form (Railway Co. v. Kirk, 111 U. S. 486, 4 Sup. Ct. 500). Of a similar mistake it was said in McDonogh v. Millaudon, 3 How. 693, 707: 'If errors had been assigned by the plaintiff here, and joined by the defendant, no motion to dismiss for such a cause could be heard.' But the court express no opinion as to whether the error was, in itself, cause for dismissal. As was said in Ex parte Ralston, it has doubtless 'been the prevailing custom from the beginning for the clerk of this court or of the circuit court for the proper district to issue the writ, and for such writ to be lodged with the clerk of the state court,' but it has never been held that the signature of the clerk of the state court was fatal to the writ. On the contrary, it was held in Sheppard v. Wilson, 5 How. 210, that the act of 1838, providing that writs of error and appeals from the final decisions of the supreme court of a territory should be allowed in the same manner and under the same regualtions as from the circuit courts of the United States, gave to the clerk of the territorial court the power to issue the writ of error, and to a judge of that court the power to sign the citation, and approve the bond.
Without, however, expressing a decided opinion upon the invalidity of the writ as it now stands, we think there is no federal question properly presented by the record in this case, and that the writ of error must be dismissed upon that ground. The record exhibits nothing of what took place in the court of original jurisdiction, and begins with the assignment of errors in the court of criminal appeals. In this assignment no claim was made of any ruling of the court below adverse to any constitutional right claimed by the defendant, nor does any such appear in the opinion...
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