People v. Bradner

• Decision Date: 04 October 1887
• Citation: 107 N.Y. 1,13 N.E. 87
• Parties: PEOPLE v. BRADNER.
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

107 N.Y. 1

13 N.E. 87

PEOPLE

v.BRADNER.¹

Court of Appeals of New York.

October 4, 1887.

Appeal from general term, supreme court, Fifth department.

Joseph W. Taylor, for appellant.

Geo. W. Daggett, Dist. Atty., for respondent.

ANDREWS, J.

The defendant was indicted, at the oyer and terminer in the county of Livingston, for grand larceny, in obtaining from one Barbara Leiter the sum of $1,500 by means of a check for that amount, which he induced her to sign under the false pretense that it was a check for the sum of $100. Pen. Code, § 528. The indictment was found May 4, 1885, and the trial thereon was had in the court of sessions of Livingston county, commencing April 28, 1886, and resulted in the conviction of the defendant, who was thereupon sentenced by the court to imprisonment in the state prison for the term of five years. The principal questions presented on this appeal do not arise upon any ruling made on the trial, or in any proceeding subsequent to the trial. They are questions raised on the record alone, and which were not in any way called to the attention of the trial court. If the record discloses upon its face that the court had no jurisdiction, or that the constitutional method of trial by jury was disregarded, ( Cancemi's Case, 18 N. Y. 128,) or some other defect in the proceedings which could not be waived or cured, and is fundamental, it would, as we conceive, be the duty of an appellate tribunal to reverse the proceedings and conviction, although the question had not been formally raised in the court below, and was not presented by any ruling or exception on the trial. We are of opinion, however, that no errors of this character are disclosed in the record before us.

It is insisted that the court of sessions had no jurisdiction to try the indictment, for the reason that there was no order of the oyer and terminer remitting the indictment to that court for trial. There can be no doubt that such an order was essential to confer jurisdiction upon the court of sessions to try the indictment. The power of the oyer and terminer to remit indictments pending therein to the court of sessions for trial, and, conversely, of the court of sessions to remit indictments from that court to the oyer and terminer, existed under the Revised Statutes, and is continued under the present procedure. Code Crim. Proc. §§ 39, 41. The only exception is of indictments for crimes punishable with death, which may be found in either court, but are triable only in the oyer and terminer. The record in this case is silent as to the existence or non-existence of an order remitting the indictment in question to the sessions. It contains no order of remitter. It does not state whether such an order was made or not. But there is nothing in the record which justifies an inference, as matter of fact, that the indictment was not regularly sent by the oyer and terminer to the sessions. The bare fact that no order appears in the record does not show that an order was not made. The omission may have resulted from inadvertence in making up the record. The question is therefore presented whether, in order to the validity, of the judgment rendered, the record must affirmatively show that the sessions acquired jurisidction by virtue of an order of the oyer and terminer remitting the indictment. In the argument in Peacock v. Bell, 1 Saund. 73, the rule of jurisdiction is said to be ‘that nothing shall be intended to be out of the jurisdiction of a superior court but that which specially appears to be so; and, on the contrary, nothing shall be intended to be within the jurisdiction of an inferior court but that which is so expressly alleged;’ and this statement of the rule has been frequently approved. ‘Superior courts,’ says the learned annotator of Smith's Leading Cases, (7 Smith, Lead. Cas. 991,) ‘are presumed to act by right, and not by wrong, and their acts and judgments are consequently conclusive in themselves, unless plainly beyond the jurisdiction of the courts from which they emanate;’ and many cases are cited in support of this statement. Indeed, the general doctrine thus stated is nowhere controverted; but in applying the rule it must first be determined whether the court whose judgment is in question is to be regarded as a superior or inferior court, and therefore entitled or not, as the case may be, to the benefit of the presumption of jurisdiction. There is a qualification of the general rule stated in Saunders, to be found in some of the cases, depending upon the fact whether the question of jurisdiction arises collaterally, or in a direct proceeding in error to review the judgment.

There is also another inquiry which has given rise to much debate, and that is whether jurisdictional facts, shown by the record of a judgment of a court of general jurisdiction to exist, can be controverted. That question received great consideration in this court in the case of Ferguson v. Crawford, 70 N. Y. 253.

The present case presents simply the question of presumption as applied to the judgment under review; the record being silent, neither affirming nor denying the existence of the jurisdictional fact in controversy. There is a well-settled distinction between limitation of jurisdiction and inferiority of jurisdiction. Every court is subject to some limitation of jurisdiction, territorial or otherwise. No court can act without the boundaries of the jurisdiction by which it is created. Courts of equity and common-law courts, when separately constituted, are confined each to its appropriate sphere. The circuit and district courts of the United States exercise a limited jurisdiction. and are subject to have their judgments reviewed by another tribunal, but they are not inferior courts within the rule in Saunders, and jurisdiction of their proceedings and judgments is presumed, at least when assailed collaterally. Ruckman v. Cowell, 1 N. Y. 505; Bank v. Judson, 8 N. Y. 254. Courts of sessions in counties are not inferior courts in a technical sense. Their origin dates far back in the colonial period. Courts of sessions were established in each county in the province of New York by the ‘Act to settle courts of justice,’ passed in 1683, with general criminal and civil jurisdiction, (see Rev. Laws 1813, App.,) and they have been continued from that date to this as criminal courts in each of the counties of the state. Their jurisdiction, (under the name of general sessions of the peace,) as defined by the Revised Statutes, (2 Rev. St. 208, § 5,) extended to make inquiry by a grand jury of all crimes committed or triable in the county, and to the trial and punishment of all crimes not punishable by death, or by imprisonment in the state prison for life. The Code of Criminal Procedure has removed one of the restrictions in the Revised Statutes, so that all crimes are now triable in courts of sessions, except crimes punishable with death, and has in other respects extended and enlarged their powers. Section 39. During the whole history of the state, courts of sessions have exercised a very extensive jurisdiction in criminal cases, and we can perceive no reason why their judgments are not entitled to every presumption attaching to courts of enlarged and general jurisdiction. The court is presided over, as a rule, by a judge learned in the law. It acts through a grand and petit jury, and proceeds according to the course of the common law. It determines all questions of personal liberty affected by crime, and is only precluded from trying indictments for crimes punishable with death. The accused has the benefit of counsel, the decisions of the court are subject to review, and all the safeguards designed for the protection of persons accused of crime attend its proceedings. We think it would be difficult to assign any valid reason why the same presumption of regularity and jurisdiction should not be indulged to uphold the judgment of a court of sessions, as is indulged in in respect to judgments of the oyer and terminer; or why, if the present appeal was from a conviction at the oyer and terminer on an indictment found at the sessions, a presumption that the indictment had been duly remitted should be indulged in the one case, and not in the other.

Foot v. Stevens, 17 Wend. 483, was an action of debt on a judgment of the court of common pleas of the county of Genesee. The record did not show that the court had acquired jurisdiction of the person of the defendant, and it was objected that the judgment was void. The court overruled the objection, and, on motion for a new trial, it was held that courts of common pleas, although relatively inferior courts, and subject to the control of the supreme court by mandamus, certiorari, etc., were to be regarded as courts of general jurisdiction, and that, when nothing to the contrary appears, it will be intended, in support of a judgment therein, that the court had jurisdiction of the person, although not averred in the record. The same question was decided in the same way in Hart v. Seixas, 21 Wend. 40, on error from a judgment of the New York common pleas, and a reversal was sought on the ground that the record did not show that the court had acquired jurisdiction of the person of the defendant. The prevailing opinion was pronounced by COWEN, J., affirming the judgment, and it was held that the fact that the question arose on error, and not collaterally, as in Foot v. Stevens, made no difference, and that the presumption attached alike in the one case as in the other. The case of Hart v. Seixas has been questioned, (1 Smith, Lead. Cas. 1021,) as carrying the doctrine of presumption somewhat beyond its legitimate boundaries, but the case has been frequently cited in our reports with approval, and has never been overruled, and must be regarded as authoritative in our courts. See Bank v. Judson, supra. In Frees v. Ford, 6 N. Y. 176, it was held that county courts, organized under the...