Swift v. Wayne Circuit Judges

• Decision Date: 20 January 1887
• Court: Michigan Supreme Court
• Parties: SWIFT, Recorder of the City of Detroit, v. WAYNE CIRCUIT JUDGES.

31 N.W. 434

64 Mich. 479

SWIFT, Recorder of the City of Detroit, v. WAYNE CIRCUIT JUDGES.

Supreme Court of Michigan

January 20, 1887

Henry M. Duffield, for relator.

George H. Prentiss, for defendant.

CAMPBELL C.J.

A writ of certiorari was issued by the circuit court for the county of Wayne to review a conviction in the recorder's court of Detroit for an alleged violation of a city ordinance. The recorder applies to us for a mandamus or prohibition to prevent the circuit court from exercising this jurisdiction. The whole question turns on the inquiry whether the recorder's court of Detroit, acting in the particular case in controversy, is a court inferior to the circuit court.

The constitution of Michigan in terms gives to the supreme court a general superintending control over all inferior courts with power to issue writs of error and other writs named both original and appellate. Article 6, � 3. By section 8 of the same article the circuit courts are given general civil and criminal jurisdiction, except as otherwise provided, and appellate jurisdiction and supervisory control over all "inferior courts and tribunals," within their jurisdictions. By section 1 "the judicial power is vested in one supreme court, in circuit courts, in probate courts, and in justices of the peace. Municipal courts of civil and criminal jurisdiction may be established by the legislature in cities." By section 15 the supreme circuit, and probate courts are declared to be courts of record, and required to have each a common seal.

A preliminary question is, what is meant in this constitution by the term "inferior courts?" The relator's argument is largely based upon what counsel suppose to be the common-law definition of an inferior court, which always means a court which is not one of the four great courts of the realm; that is, the court of chancery and the three great common-law courts sitting at Westminster. Toml.Law Dict "Inferior Courts." Another less accurate distinction is found in the distinction between courts of record, whose records establish themselves, and are valid judgments in themselves, and courts not of record, proceeding under special conditions, whose jurisdiction is not presumed. The recorder's court is a court of record by name, and, so far as it has common-law powers, its records are treated as common-law records. But it also has special and peculiar powers, where its records are open to the more or less limited objections allowed by all jurisprudence in such peculiar cases. And it is very well known that in England there have always been many courts, not sitting at Westminster, whose records are respected. The term "inferior" is not of one single meaning in law, but is used in different senses. Under the constitution of the United States, congress has no power to create courts which are not inferior to the supreme court. The cases cited by counsel from the decisions of that court do not claim that the circuit and district courts are not inferior to the supreme court, but merely that, being courts of general powers and of record, they are not inferior courts in the sense in which that word is sometimes used to distinguish courts among themselves after their kind. In England, error lay to the common pleas out of the king's bench, making the former, in our constitutional sense, inferior to the latter; while both ranked as superior courts. So all of them were subject to review by the exchequer chamber, and that by the house of lords. Our American constitutional use of the word refers to relative rank and authority, and not to intrinsic quality. Under our own constitution, as under that of the United States, the supreme court could have no appellate power or supervision over the circuit courts except on this idea that they are inferior to it, for none but inferior courts are subjected to it, and the jurisdiction of our circuit courts equals that of the English superior courts. And, if the argument for the secondary English rule is resting on the distinction between courts of record and others, both circuit and probate courts being declared courts of record, and not in terms made subject to the supreme court by the constitution, except as by their nature inferior to it, no supervisory power could exist in either supreme or circuit courts over the probate courts. Yet the latter have been made subject to the circuit courts and continue so, and their powers are subject to legislative control. They are not common-law courts of record.

There is, however, a significant difference between the supreme and circuit courts in regard to the scope of their supervisory jurisdiction. The circuit court has not been given any express power to issue writs of error, which are the only writs adapted to reviewing ordinary common-law judgments. In the charter of Detroit the only proceedings in the recorder's court expressly provided for as appealable to any other court are required to be removed to the supreme court "by writ of error, or other process, in the same manner that like proceedings may by law be removed to the supreme court from the circuit courts of the state." Laws 1883, � 241. On examining the charter, it will be found that these courts have no like proceedings with the circuit courts, except in common-law cases. Special proceedings are always statutory, and must be conducted where the statute places them, and the circuit courts have no jurisdiction over ordinance cases under their original powers.

The charter unquestionably puts the criminal business, and the street and alley cases, expressly beyond the jurisdiction of the circuit court, either original or appellate. The real controversy is whether the fact that a part of its jurisdiction is exempt from circuit court supervision prevents the recorder's court from being inferior to the circuit. The primary purpose of the recorder's court was to serve as an agency of the city in enforcing by-laws and ordinances and other municipal business. It succeeded to the mayor's court, which, by the charter of 1827, if not earlier, was made a court of record, and vested with all of the ordinary powers of the present recorder's court, except its jurisdiction over crimes. By that charter, and amendments to it, the mayor's court was given a very large common-law jurisdiction of all civil cases arising within the city, in which the city was a plaintiff, and these cases were required to be tried according to the rules governing the circuit courts. Section 3 of act of April 13, 1841. Nevertheless, in spite of its character as a court of record trying and adjudicating these common-law issues, without reference to their magnitude, which might include many thousand dollars, and which in their nature were of as high a nature as indictments, an appeal lay to the circuit court of Wayne county, subject to the rules governing appeals from justices. Section 4, 1841.

In Welles v. City of Detroit, 2 Doug. (Mich.) 77, an attempt was made by the city to prosecute a debtor by attachment proceedings in the mayor's court, claiming that in common-law city causes it had the same jurisdiction as the circuit, but the judgment was taken directly to the supreme court by certiorari, and not by writ of error, where it was held that the civil jurisdiction of this court was limited as expressed, and could not be extended by construction so as to embrace this extraordinary remedy, which in terms was allowed to circuit courts by name, and the proceedings were quashed.

Under the old constitution, which did not define or grant jurisdiction to the circuit courts, but left all but the supreme court to be provided for at discretion the circuit courts had their whole appellate power provided for by statute. The mayor's court was not only put under the circuit court, but its judgments were all open to appeal and retrial on the merits. The supreme court alone could issue writs of error and certiorari under its common-law jurisdiction. Under the constitution of 1850, as already seen, the circuit courts were empowered to issue writs of certiorari in the exercise of their supervisory control. In the circuit court acts, no provision was made for the writ of certiorari, except in special cases, and it seems to have been supposed the power was entirely statutory. But, when the question was brought into this court, it was held that the right to issue a common-law certiorari, being given by the constitution, could not be taken away by statute, and existed in the circuit courts as an inherent power. Thompson v. School-district No. 6 of Crockery, 25 Mich. 483; Taylor v. Judge...