Raynor v. State

• Citation: 22 N.W. 430,62 Wis. 289
• Parties: RAYNOR v. STATE.
• Decision Date: 03 February 1885
• Court: United States State Supreme Court of Wisconsin

62 Wis. 289

22 N.W. 430

RAYNOR

v.STATE.¹

Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Filed February 3, 1885.

Error to Milwaukee municipal court.

W. J. Turner, for plaintiff in error.

Asst. Atty. Gen. H. W. Chynoweth, for defendant in error.

TAYLOR, J.

This action is brought to this court upon a writ of error, directed to the municipal court of Milwaukee, for the purpose of reviewing a judgment of that court rendered upon a criminal complaint against the said plaintiff in error for a violation of the provisions of section 1 of chapter 256, Laws 1881. Upon the hearing of this case the learned attorney general made no argument upon the merits of the case, but contented himself with moving to dismiss the action on the ground that this court had no authority to issue a writ of error to the said municipal court to bring up for review a judgment of that court of the character of the judgment in question. It is insisted that, under the law organizing the municipal court of Milwaukee, in all cases of judgments rendered in criminal actions in that court, where a justice of the peace would have had jurisdiction to hear and try the same, were it not for the statutes organizing and giving jurisdiction to the municipal court, no writ of error will lie to that court to review the same; and if such judgments can be reviewed at all, the review must be either by appeal to the municipal court itself in term time, or to the circuit court of Milwaukee county, as in other cases of appeal from justice's judgments in criminal actions.

The action in which the judgment was rendered in the case at bar was one of which a justice of the peace would have jurisdiction. Section 1, c. 256, Laws 1881; section 4739, Rev. St. The argument is that because a writ of error would not lie to review the judgment of an ordinary justice of the peace, had the judgment been rendered in an action before such justice, therefore it will not lie to review the judgment rendered in the same action in the municipal court. The right of this court to review the judgment in this case upon a writ of error issuing from this court depends upon the law conferring jurisdiction upon the municipal court, and not upon the nature of the action itself. There are hundreds of actions, both civil and criminal, of which a justice court has jurisdiction, which may be and are commenced in the circuit court, and other courts of record in this state, and in which final judgments are rendered, yet it never has been doubted that all such judgments not only may, but in the absence of some law to the contrary they must, be reviewed in this court, either upon appeal or writ of error, in the same manner that any other judgments in said court are reviewed which are rendered in actions over which justices' courts have no jurisdiction.

There is nothing, therefore, in the fact that the action in this case in which judgment was rendered was an action of which a justice had jurisdiction, which prevents this court from reviewing such judgment upon writ of error. If there be any valid objection to the jurisdiction of this court in this case, we must look for it in the law conferring jurisdiction upon the municipal court of Milwaukee. For the purposes of this case we need not trace the history of said court further back than the Revised Statutes of 1878. Section 2499, Rev. St., continued the court and declared its jurisdiction, and made it a court of record as to a certain part of its powers. The section then contained these words: “No justice of the peace or court commissioner, within said city, shall exercise any jurisdiction in any criminal cases, but all such jurisdiction is vested in said court and the judge thereof, and all examinations, recognizances, and commitments from said judge, and from the other justices of the peace of said county, in criminal cases, shall be certified and returned to said municipal court, instead of the circuit court, of said county; and all such cases shall thereafter be proceeded in and tried in said municipal court, as provided by law for similar cases in circuit courts.” This provision did not confer upon the municipal court the power to try a criminal case which was triable in a justice court, but only to substitute the jurisdiction of the municipal court for the jurisdiction of the circuit court in criminal cases, with the additional power in the court or judge to take preliminary examinations and hold for trial. The following clause in this section confirms this fact, because it limits the review of its judgments in criminal cases to such as would be reviewable if they had been rendered in the circuit court. The clause reads as follows: “The judgments of said municipal court, in criminal cases tried upon information, indictments, or appeal, may be reviewed by the supreme court in the same manner as judgments of the circuit court may be.”

Section 2501, Rev. St., reads as follows: “The judge of said court has all the powers and jurisdiction of a justice of the peace in criminal cases, and shall have jurisdiction of all prosecutions for breach of any ordinance, law, rule, regulation, and resolution of the city of Milwaukee. For the latter purpose he shall open court each morning, (Sundays and legal holidays excepted,) and hear and dispose of, in a summary way, all cases for such breaches which shall be brought before him by the police officers of said city, or otherwise, either with or without process, and impose the fines and penalties provided by any such ordinance, law, rule, regulation, or resolution.”

It will be seen that this section gives the judge of the municipal court the jurisdiction of a justice of the peace in criminal cases, as well as jurisdiction of all actions for breaches of the ordinances of the city, and nowhere in the statutes of 1878 was there any appeal or review of judgments rendered in such action given to any other court. Under the law as it stood in 1878 there was, to say the least, very grave doubt whether the judgments rendered by the municipal judge, in the actions mentioned in said section 2501, could be reviewed by this court by writ of error. The statute having expressly given the right to review the judgments of the court acting as a court of record, and limited the review to such judgments only, it could well have been argued that judgments rendered by the municipal judge under the jurisdiction conferred, not upon the court, but upon the judge, under section 2501, were not to be considered as the judgments of a court of record, but as the judgments of the municipal judge, acting in the capacity of a justice of the peace for said city, with exclusive jurisdiction, and that, consequently, in such cases, the right to review such judgments still remained in the circuit court of the county, or, perhaps, by an appeal from the judgment of the judge acting as a justice, to the municipal court acting as a court of record.

But it is unnecessary to determine what would have been the rights of a party to this action under the law as it stood in 1878, as by chapter 256, Laws 1879, this difficulty and uncertainty in the law was intended to be, and we think was, remedied. Section 1, c. 256, Laws 1879, amends section 2499, Rev. St., as to the clause first above quoted, so that the jurisdiction in regard to criminal complaints, trials, and appeals is vested in the “municipal court” instead of “in the court and the judge thereof.” The words, “and in the judge thereof,” are purposely omitted in the amendment. The clause in regard to the review of the judgments of the municipal court is changed so as to read as follows: “The judgments of the municipal court, in all cases tried before it, may be examined and reviewed by the supreme court, in the same manner as the judgments of the circuit court may be.”

Section 3 of said chapter 256 amends section 2501 as to jurisdiction by making the section read as follows: “The municipal court has all the powers and jurisdiction heretofore vested in the police justice of said city, in all cases of crimes and misdemeanors arising in said city, and has jurisdiction of all prosecutions for breach of any ordinance, law, rule, regulation, or resolution of said city. For such purposes said municipal court shall be open, etc. * * * The provisions of an act entitled ‘An act to establish a code of procedure for the police court of the city of Milwaukee,’ approved March 17, 1853, so far as the same are applicable, shall apply to the municipal court, except the sixth section of said act, which is repealed.” The sixth section of the act of 1853, establishing the police court for the city of Milwaukee, and which was repealed by the section above quoted, gave the defendant in all city prosecutions the right to appeal from the judgments rendered against him in that court to the circuit court of Milwaukee county, and prescribed the method of taking such appeal.

It seems to us very clear that the amendments of 1879, by which all jurisdiction in criminal cases is expressly conferred upon the court instead of the judge; the fact that the limitation put upon the right to review the judgments of that court by section 2499, Rev. St., was removed, and the right of review was extended to the judgments of the courts in all cases tried in that court; and the fact that section 6 of the police court act, which gave an appeal from the judgments of that court to the circuit court, was expressly repealed,--disclose a very clear intent that all the judgments of the municipal court should be put upon the same footing of the judgments of other courts of record in the state, and that the right to review the judgments of that court should be vested in the supreme court alone.

That the municipal court of Milwaukee is a court of record must be admitted. The act creating it and defining its powers declares it to be a court of record, and it has been recognized as such by this court in many cases, which have come before it on writ of error...