State v. Coleman

• Decision Date: 19 March 1937
• Docket Number: No. 637.,637.
• Citation: 190 A. 791
• Parties: STATE v. COLEMAN.
• Court: Rhode Island Supreme Court

190 A. 791

STATE

v. COLEMAN.

No. 637.

Supreme Court of Rhode Island.

March 19, 1937.

Proceeding by the State for a writ of certiorari to the district court of the First judicial district, of which Robert M. Franklin is justice, and Raymond Coleman, for production of a record wherein such court ordered the return to respondent Coleman of a dredge in the possession of the department of state police.

Writ granted and record quashed.

John P. Hartigan, Atty. Gen., and Michael De Ciantis, 3rd Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

William G. Troy and Joseph C. Cawley, both of Providence, for respondent.

CAPOTOSTO, Justice.

This petition for a writ of certiorari was brought by the state against the district court of the First judicial district, whereof Robert M. Franklin, Esq., is justice, and a citation was issued to one Raymond Coleman, the defendant in a criminal case pending in that court. The writ was issued in accordance with the petition, and commanded the production of a certain record wherein the said district court ordered the return to Coleman of a dredge now in the possession of the department of state police of this state.

The petition alleges that Coleman is a defendant in a complaint and warrant pending in the said court charging him with illegally dredging quahaugs on December 12, 1935, in a restricted area in the Sakonnet river, and that when he was arrested, the dredge was seized as evidence by the state police.

After setting out these facts, the petition alleges that on December 17, 1935. Coleman filed a motion, in the crimnal case then pending against him, for an order from the court directing the state police to return the dredge to him. The grounds of this motion were that the dredge was unlawfully seized and detained, and, further, that he needed the dredge to pursue his calling as a licensed fisherman. The superintendent of the state police, Edward J. Kelly, and certain other officers, appeared with counsel before the district court on December 20, 1935, in answer to a citation issued by that court upon Coleman's motion, and on that day the court heard the motion on arguments of counsel, but asked for and received no evidence from either side on the point in issue. On December 24, 1935, the court, without any evidence to support its action, granted the motion and ordered the return of the dredge to Coleman. The state thereupon brought this petition for a writ of certiorari, claiming that, in making such an order, the court acted without jurisdiction or in excess of the jurisdiction conferred upon it by General Laws 1923, c. 407, § 66.

Counsel for Coleman sketchily contended before us that the state is not entitled to a writ of certiorari in a criminal case, and that, inasmuch as section 66 confers jurisdiction in the premises on the district court, its action is not reviewable at the instance of the state. The brief which was filed in support of this claim is nothing more than a restatement of these contentions and gives us no assistance by way of sound legal reasoning or authority in determining the important issues raised in the case. An exhaustive or voluminous brief is neither necessary nor desirable, but it should contain considerably more than the mere statement of a premise and a conclusion.

The respondent cites only two authorities in his brief. He quotes from "Appeal and Error," 2 Cyc. 507, as follows: "By the English common law the judgments of the court of common pleas and of all inferior courts were brought under the review of the king's bench, for revision and correction, by writ of error, writ of certiorari, or writ of false judgment." The second authority upon which he relies is a part of the quotation from a Massachusetts case that this court used in its opinion in McAloon v. License Commissioners, 22 R.I. 191, 193, 46 A. 1047, 1048: "'A writ of certiorari is in the nature of a. writ of error.'" Farmington River Water Power Co. v. County Commissioners, 112 Mass. 206. From these general and fragmentary statements, the respondent argues that, since certiorari is an "appellate proceeding" and the state has no appeal in a criminal case, therefore certiorari is not maintainable at the instance of the state in the case at bar.

The respondent relies on the similarity of a writ of error with a writ of certiorari to support his contention that this proceeding is an appeal, which is denied to the state. It is true that this court in McAloon v. License Commissioners, supra, said that a writ of certiorari is in the nature of a writ of error, but later, in MacKenzie & Shea v. Rhode Island Hospital Trust Co., 45 R.I. 407, 122 A. 774, it was pointed out that, while there were certain similarities between these two writs, they were not the same. Certiorari is the broader writ. It is not a writ of strict right and will be issued by this court in the exercise of its general revisory and appellate jurisdiction to prevent harm and promote justice only when no other remedy is available.

In the absence of constitutional or statutory provisions giving the state the right of appeal under certain conditions in criminal cases, the overwhelming weight of authority in this country is that the state cannot have the action of an inferior court in the judicial exercise of its lawful jurisdiction reviewed. Where a right of review by a higher court is specifically granted to the state in a criminal case, a writ of error may be used by the state to review the record of a final judgment by an inferior court in quashing, dismissing, or sustaining a demurrer to a complaint, indictment, or information. People v. Barber, 348 Ill. 40, 180 N.E. 633, 92 A.L. R. 1137. See Commonwealth v. Capp, 48 Pa. 53. Under such circumstances, which do not raise any question of jurisdiction, a writ of error provides a method for the state to obtain such a review of a decision by an inferior court on the legal sufficiency of the criminal charge. The privilege of any sort of an appeal from a decision on the merits of a criminal charge is not expressly granted to the state by our laws.

It does not follow, however, that the people of this state, as represented by the Attorney General, are to be deprived in the enforcement of the criminal laws of all protection by this court when an inferior court assumes to act without jurisdiction or in excess of jurisdiction in connection with a criminal case. With us a writ of certiorari is an original prerogative writ. Parker v. Superior Court, 40 R.I. 214, 218, 100 A. 305. The primary office of certiorari is to review the action of an inferior court or tribunal taken without jurisdiction or in excess of the jurisdiction given to it. Cohen v. Superior Court, 39 R.I. 272, 275, 97 A. 794. Section 1, article 12, of the Amendments to our Constitution, gives this court "final revisory and appellate jurisdiction upon all questions of law and equity. It shall have power to issue prerogative writs, and shall also have such other jurisdiction as may, from time to time be prescribed by law." By section 2, chapter 322, General Laws 1923, this court is empowered to exercise "general supervision of all courts of inferior jurisdiction to correct and prevent errors and abuses therein when no other remedy is expressly provided; it may issue writs of habeas corpus, of error, certiorari, mandamus, prohibition, quo warranto, and all other extraordinary and prerogative writs and processes necessary for the furtherance of justice and the due administration of the law." In view of these provisions, the original scope of the writ of certiorari has been somewhat extended by our decisions, for the purpose of carrying out the revisory and appellate power of this court for the furtherance of justice and the due administration of the law. Cohen v. Superior Court, supra.

A writ of certiorari is an "appellate proceeding," as the respondent calls it in this case, only in the sense that it issues from this court for the purpose of reviewing the action of an inferior court. It does not reach the merits of any judicial action by an inferior court taken in the exercise of jurisdiction possessed by such court, but generally concerns itself with the question whether, in taking such action, the inferior court acted without jurisdiction or in excess of jurisdiction. Considering the primary office of a writ of certiorari and our decisions in reference thereto, in the light of the revisory power over inferior tribunals vested in this court by the Constitution and laws of this state, we are of the opinion that certiorari lies in favor of the state in a criminal case to determine whether such tribunal is acting without jurisdiction or in excess of jurisdiction.

We find two cases in this state where a defendant in a criminal case complained that an inferior court was acting in excess of its jurisdiction, and invoked the revisory power of this court by writ of certiorari. In both cases this court entertained a petiton for a writ of certiorari on the defendant's claim that the inferior court acted in excess of jurisdiction in finding him guilty of a lesser charge than the one set out in the complaint or indictment, but it denied the writ in each case on the ground that the action of the inferior court was not in excess of its lawful jurisdiction. Kenney v. State, 5 R.I. 385; Antoscia v. Superior Court, 38 R.I. 332, 95 A. 848.

There is no decision in our reports where the state, in a criminal case, has alleged that the action of an...