Territory v. Taketa
| Decision Date | 17 June 1924 |
| Docket Number | No. 1545.,1545. |
| Citation | 27 Haw. 844 |
| Parties | TERRITORY v. KIYOTO TAKETA. |
| Court | Hawaii Supreme Court |
OPINION TEXT STARTS HERERESERVED QUESTIONS FROM CIRCUIT COURT FIRST CIRCUIT. HON. J. J. BANKS, JUDGE.
Syllabus by the Court
In a prosecution for a violation of Act 36, S. L. 1920, a defendant is not entitled to a trial by jury in the first instance.
A district magistrate has jurisdiction to try a defendant upon a charge of violating the provisions of Act 36, S. L. 1920, after defendant has demanded a jury trial and waived examination in the district court.J. A. Matthewman, Attorney General, and Frear, Prosser, Anderson & Marx for the Territory.
Lightfoot & Lightfoot for defendant.
Defendant was charged before the district magistrate of Honolulu with violating Act 36, S. L. 1920, by teaching school without first having obtained a certificate from the department of public instruction. He demanded a trial by jury and waived examination, but such demand was refused. He then filed a plea to the jurisdiction of the district magistrate, claiming that the district magistrate ought not to have or take cognizance of the cause because he had demanded a trial by jury and waived examination, and that he was entitled to a trial by jury under Article III of the Constitution and the Sixth Amendment thereof, as well as by section 83 of the Organic Act of this Territory. This plea was overruled. Defendant then demurred to the charge on several grounds, including the alleged invalidity of Act 36, S. L. 1920, under the Constitution and the Treaty with Japan. The demurrer was overruled and the district magistrate, over the objection of defendant that he was entitled to a trial by jury, tried the case, found the defendant guilty as charged, and sentenced him to pay a fine of five dollars without costs of court. The defendant thereupon appealed to the circuit court upon the following points of law:
“1. In a prosecution for a violation of Act 36 of the Session Laws of Hawaii of 1920, is the defendant entitled to a trial by jury in the first instance?
2. Has the district magistrate jurisdiction to try the defendant upon the charge of violating the provisions of Act 36 of the Session Laws of Hawaii of 1920 after said defendant has demanded a jury trial and waived examination in the district court?”
which questions the circuit judge has reserved for the consideration of this court.
It is provided by Act 36, S. L. 1920, that no person shall serve as a teacher in any school without having first obtained a certificate from the department of public instruction, and that any person who shall serve as a teacher without holding such a certificate shall be punished by a fine not exceeding twenty-five dollars.
But one question is raised herein, namely, under a charge of violating the Act in question is the defendant entitled, as a matter of right, to a trial by jury in the first instance if he demands the same?
Article III of the Constitution provides that “The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury,” and the Sixth Amendment provides that “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury.” By section 83 of the Organic Act of this Territory it is provided that “No person shall be convicted in any criminal case except by unanimous verdict of the jury.”
It is contended by defendant that the offense with which he is charged constitutes a “crime” and that the proceeding before the district magistrate is a “criminal prosecution,” in support of which contention defendant cites certain definitions of the term “crime,” namely, “An act committed or omitted in violation of a public law either forbidding or demanding it.” Anderson's Dictionary of Law. Also as “A wrong of which the law takes cognizance and punishes in what is called a criminal proceeding prosecuted by the state in its own name or in the name of the people or the sovereign.” Id. The defendant also quotes the definition given by this court to the words “criminal case” in Territory v. Nishimura, 22 Haw. 614, 616, namely, “The words ‘criminal case’ apply to proceedings in a court against an accused person charged with doing something forbidden, who, if found guilty, is punished.”
Our statutes contain numerous inhibitions against acts, failure to observe which, renders the person liable to a trivial fine. For driving cattle through the streets of Honolulu between certain hours, or driving a dray faster than a walk, or driving a vehicle at night without a light, or driving on the wrong side of the road, or walking on a railroad bridge, or affixing posters on fences, etc., etc., a person is liable to be mulcted in a fine of from ten to twenty-five dollars. The offense with which this defendant is charged, punishable as it is with but a small fine, is clearly within this class of offenses and, if the contention of defendant is sound, all persons proceeded against for the violation of any of these trivial statutory offenses may, as of right, demand that the question as to whether they have or have not violated such statute, be submitted to the investigation of a jury. If the law be as thus contended for and every person alleged to have violated one of these petty statutory provisions is entitled, in the first instance, to a trial by jury, with all the delays and expense attendant to that method of trial, the simplification of court procedure that is being so strenuously agitated alike by lawyers and laymen will be much delayed if not indefinitely postponed.
Notwithstanding the apparently broad and inclusive language of the constitutional provisions safeguarding the right of persons accused of crimes to trial by jury, there are undoubtedly certain infractions of the law for which the offender may, without right in the first instance to trial by jury, be summarily tried and punished by a district magistrate. The jurisdiction of district magistrates to try criminal cases is set forth in sections 2299 and 2300, R. L. 1915, as follows:
Sec. 2300. “District magistrates shall have power, subject to appeal according to law, and except as otherwise provided in cases in which the accused shall have the right to and shall demand a trial by jury in the first instance, to try without a jury, and to render judgment in all cases of criminal offenses coming within their respective jurisdictions * * *.”
It thus appears that by the first provision of section 2299 criminal jurisdiction, in general terms, is conferred upon district magistrates to try offenses punishable by fine or imprisonment for not more than one year. There are, however, limitations imposed upon the jurisdiction thus given, the first being that the district magistrate shall not have jurisdiction over offenses for which the accused cannot be held to answer unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury; furthermore, the district magistrate may not try a case in which the accused shall have the right to trial by jury in the first instance, if the accused shall demand such trial by jury. If in such a case, a demand for a jury is made, the district magistrate becomes a committing magistrate, no longer empowered to try the case and impose punishment, but only to examine and discharge or commit the accused for trial as the case may be. If the accused does not demand a trial by jury in the first instance the district magistrate may entertain jurisdiction and try the case subject to the right of the accused to appeal as provided by law. Section 2299 having thus prescribed the class of cases in which the district magistrate may or may not entertain jurisdiction, it is next provided by section 2300 that “District magistrates shall have power * * * except as otherwise provided in cases in which the accused shall have the right to and shall demand a trial by jury in the first instance, to try without a jury, and to render judgment in all cases of criminal offenses coming within their respective jurisdictions.” It is clear from the language of the sections quoted that it was contemplated that in certain cases coming before district magistrates the accused had the right to and might demand a trial by jury in the first instance, and provision was accordingly made for such cases. On the other hand it is equally clear that it was recognized that in certain other cases the accused would not have the right to a trial by jury in the first instance.
Congress, in conferring jurisdiction upon the police court of the District of Columbia, has recognized that there are certain petty cases in which an...
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