Territory v. Baca
| Decision Date | 26 July 1892 |
| Citation | 30 P. 864,6 N.M. 420,1892 -NMSC- 010 |
| Parties | TERRITORY v. BACA, (four cases.) |
| Court | New Mexico Supreme Court |
Appeal from district court, Santa Fe county; EDWARD P. SEEDS, Judge.
Luciano Baca was indicted, and filed pleas in abatement. From a judgment sustaining same the territory appeals. Affirmed.
H. L Waldo, Neill B. Field, and Thos. Smith, for appellee.
These causes involve the same questions, and for convenience of argument have been consolidated. These are appeals from the judgment of the district court of the county of Santa Fe sustaining pleas in abatement to indictment found against the defendants in the abovenumbered causes. The cases presented involve the validity of the act of the legislature which became a law by limitation on February 26, 1889. The act in question provides substantially that, in counties of the territory wherein courts are held for the trial of causes arising under the laws of the United States, --that is to say, in the counties of Santa Fe, San Miguel, Bernalillo, and Dona Ana, --the number of grand jurors shall be 21, any 12 of whom may find an indictment, and that in all the other counties the number of grand jurors shall be 12, any 9 of whom may find an indictment. We held at the last term of this court, in the case of U.S. v. De Amador, 27 P. 488 that, so far as it relates to trials of causes arising under the laws of the United States, the statute is not in contravention of the constitution of the United States, nor of any act of congress. The jury as to these courts, and as to this class of cases, is a good common-law jury, and the several counties composing the district over which the jurisdiction of the court extends constitute the vicinage. So far, however, as the act attempts to regulate the trial of offenses against the territory, a different rule applies. It enacts that the jury drawn from the several counties composing the judicial districts, which, for the sake of distinction, we shall call the "federal" jury, shall alone have authority to make presentments of all crimes committed against the territory in the county in which the court is held. It follows that under the provisions of this statute a citizen of the county in which the federal court is held may be indicted by the votes of 12 men, neither one of whom may be a citizen of the county wherein the offense is alleged to have been committed. And again, under this statute, it requires the votes of 12 grand jurors to find an indictment in Santa Fe county, and of only 9 to find an indictment for the same offense in other counties composing the judicial district. This, we think, is clearly in contravention of the act of congress approved July 30, 1886, which provides that no local or special law shall be enacted by the legislature of any territory for summoning or impaneling grand or petit jurors. 24 U.S. St. p. 170. It is therefore the judgment of the court that the judgment of the district court be affirmed, and it is so ordered.
OPINION OF TRIAL JUDGE.
Believing that the importance of this case requires a fuller presentation of the fact and questions involved than have been given it in the opinion of the court, I take advantage of the law permitting the trial judge to give his views upon the case, to file my opinion as delivered in the district court. The defendant in this case was indicted for murder on the ___ day of ___, 1890, by a grand jury impaneled in the county of Santa Fe, in accordance with the requirements of section 4, c. 96, of the Laws of the twenty-eighth assembly of this territory. By sections 4 and 5 of that law, it is provided that "in the several counties of this territory where courts are held for the trial of causes arising under the laws of the United States, that is to say, in the counties of Santa Fe, San Miguel, Bernalillo, and Dona Ana," the number of grand jurors shall be 21, any 12 of whom may find an indictment; while in the other counties of the territory, "excepting the counties of Santa Fe, San Miguel, Bernalillo, and Dona Ana," the number of grand jurors shall be 12, any 9 of whom may find an indictment. Further, by the provisions of said law, the grand jurors who serve in the territorial courts and find indictments for infractions of the laws of the territory in the four counties of Santa Fe, San Miguel, Bernalillo, and Dona Ana, are drawn, not from the body of those respective counties, but from the whole district, comprised of two or more counties, over which the United States district court has jurisdiction solely for the trial of infractions of United States law; while in all other counties of the territory the grand juries are drawn from the body of their respective counties. In fact, by the express terms of section 4 of this law, the same grand jury in each of the four counties above specifically mentioned act in a dual capacity, --as a territorial grand jury for the district court of the respective counties, and as a United States grand jury for the respective district of which the county may be the head. To this indictment so found the defendant interposed pleas, alleging in substance the illegality of the grand jury so summoned and impaneled. The territory filed replications to the pleas, alleging the legality of said jury. The replication is in the nature of a demurrer.
The positions taken by the defendant are two: First. That the constitution of the United States, the organic act of this territory, and the law of congress governing territories constitute the constitutional authority of the territory; and that by the United States constitution, (amendment 5,) which says that "no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury," is meant a common-law grand jury, which contemplates a body of men legally drawn from the county or vicinage wherein the crime was committed; in other words, such a grand jury as was known to the law when the constitution was adopted. Second. That by the law of July 30, 1886, passed by the United States congress, there was a specific prohibition upon the territorial legislature against passing local or special laws for summoning or impaneling jurors; and that the law under which the grand jury was drawn which found the indictment in question was illegal under either of these positions. Upon the other hand, the territory contends that the constitutional requirements are met, if there is an impartial grand jury, legally drawn; and that it is discretionary with the legislature as to the number of persons it will place upon the grand jury, and as to the area of territory from which they may be drawn; and that the law in question has made a proper classification of the counties, and the terms used are general as to the classes, and hence, under well-known legal principles, the law is general, and not local or special.
That the question here raised, as to the legality of the territorial jury system, is momentous and of great importance, is evident. Upon the one hand is to be considered the possibility that citizens are being indicted, tried, and possibly being found guilty by juries which may be wholly illegal; rights being jeopardized by an institution which has only the semblance of constitutional authority; and those privileges, which are of such inestimable value that courts and legislatures for centuries have struggled with jealous care, by refinements which at times would seem to partake of scholastic subtlety, to protect it from insidious overthrow may be each day threatened by the appearance of a legal institution which in fact is without the sanction of law. Upon the other hand, to set the law in question aside as illegal may allow of the escape of some criminals who ought to be punished, render nugatory and useless much work that has been done, and make useless the expenditure of large sums of money. Yet the question ought to be met boldly, and decided upon its merits, unbiased by any feared evil consequences. A wrong principle ought not be to upheld for fear of the temporary ill consequences following its condemnation. A wrong principle is eternally wrong. Evil consequences following its abrogation are temporary, and are forgotten in the presence of the beneficence of the true principle. The law is well settled that a court should not hold an act of the legislature unconstitutional if it has any reasonable ground upon which to base the legality of the measure. The duty of the court is to use every reasonable intendment to sustain legislation. In re New York El. R. Co., 70 N.Y. 327. Upon this principle I shall act considering the questions raised by the pleadings before me. I shall first consider the proposition of the defendant in regard to the character of a grand jury, and the power over it by a territorial legislature. As preliminary, the inquiry is, are the constitution of the United States, the organic act of the territory, and the laws of the United States in reference to territories the constitutional law of the territory? In other words, do they stand to the territory and its legislature in the same relation as a state constitution does to the state and its legislature? It seems to me that this question must be answered in the affirmative. It has been so held generally in Re Attorney General, 2 N. M. 49, cases cited; and, as to the seventh amendment of the constitution, in Webster v. Reid, 11 How. 460. There can be no doubt but that the fifth amendment to the constitution, which says: "No person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment by a grand jury,"--is part of the constitutional law of this territory, and any attempt to...
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