The Justices v. Murray

• Decision Date: 01 December 1869
• Citation: 9 Wall. 274,19 L.Ed. 658,76 U.S. 274
• Parties: THE JUSTICES v. MURRAY
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

76 U.S. 274

19 L.Ed. 658

9 Wall. 274

THE JUSTICES v. MURRAY.

December Term, 1869

ERROR to the Circuit Court for the Southern District of New York; the case being thus:

Patrie brought a suit for an assault and battery and false imprisonment against Murray and Buckley in the Supreme Court of the Third District of New York; to which the defendants pleaded the general issue, and pleaded further as a special defence that the said Murray was marshal of the Southern District of New York, and the said Buckley his deputy; and that, as such marshal, he, Murray, was, by order of the President, on or about the 28th August, 1862, directed to take the plaintiff into custody; that the said Buckley, as such deputy, was directed by him, the marshal, to execute the said order; and that, acting as such deputy, and in pursuance of his directions, he, Buckley, did, in a lawful manner, and without force or violence, take the said Patrie into custody; that during all the time he was in custody he was kept and detained in pursuance of said order of the President, and not otherwise.

In December following a writ of error was issued to the Supreme Court of the Third District, to remove the cause to the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. The writ was issued under the 5th section of an act of Congress, passed March 3d, 1863, entitled 'An act relating to Habeas Corpus, and regulating proceedings in certain cases.' The 5th section of this act provides as follows:

'If 'any suit or prosecution, civil or criminal, has been or shall be commenced in any State court, against any officer, civil or military,' . . . or 'for any arrest or imprisonment made' . . . 'at any time during the present rebellion, by virtue or under color of any authority by or under the Fresident of the United States,' . . . 'it shall' . . . 'be competent for either party, within six months after the rendition of a judgment in any such cause by writ of error or other process, to remove the same to the Circuit Court of the United States for that district in which such judgment shall have been rendered; and the said Circuit Court shall thereupon proceed to try and determine the facts and law in such action in the same manner as if the same had been there originally commenced, the judgment in such case notwithstanding."

The State court refused to make a return to the writ of error. Thereupon an alternative mandamus was issued by the Circuit Court of the United States, to which a return was made setting forth the suit, trial, and judgment already referred to. To this there was a demurrer and joinder; and, after due consideration, the demurrer was sustained, and a judgment for a peremptory mandamus rendered. From this judgment a writ of error was taken to this court.¹

The case was argued on two occasions, and each time with ability and care. On the first by Mr. A. J. Parker, for the plaintiffs in error, and by Mr. Evarts, then Attorney-General, contra; and at this term, by Mr. Parker again, on one side as before, and by Mr. Hoar, now Attorney-General, with Mr. Field, Assistant Attorney-General, on the other. On the second occasion the argument was confined to two questions submitted by the court:

1. Whether or not the act of Congress of March 3d, 1863, providing for the removal of a cause, after judgment by a State court, to the Circuit Court of the United States, for a new trial, is an act in pursuance of the Constitution of the United States?

2. Whether or not the provision in the seventh amendment of the Constitution of the United States, which declares that no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States than according to the rules of the common law, applies to the facts tried by a jury in a cause in a State court?

Mr. Justice NELSON delivered the opinion of the court.

This case has received the most deliberate consideration of the court. As we have arrived at the conclusion that the seventh amendment, upon its true construction, applies to a cause tried by a jury in a State court, this opinion will be confined to considerations involved in the second question submitted to us for argument at the bar. The decision of that in the affirmative disposes of the case.

The seventh amendment is as follows: 'In suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved; and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States than according to the common law.'

It must be admitted that, according to the construction uniformly given to the first clause of this amendment, the suits there mentioned are confined to those in the Federal courts; and the argument is, perhaps, more than plausible, which is that the words, 'and no fact tried by a jury,' mentioned in the second, relate to the trial by jury as provided for in the previous clause. We have felt the full force of this argument, and if the two clauses were necessarily to be construed together, and to be regarded as inseparable, we think the argument would be conclusive. But this is not the view that has been taken of it by this court. In Parsons v. Bedford et al.,² Mr. Justice Story, in delivering the opinion of the court, referring to this part of the amendment, observed, 'that it should be read as a substantial and independent clause;' and that it was 'a prohibition to the courts of the United States to re-examine any facts tried by a jury in any other manner.' The history of the amendment confirms this view.³ He further observed that 'the only modes known to the common law to re-examine such facts was the granting of a new trial by the court where the issue was tried, or the award of a venire facias de novo, by the appellate court, for some error of law that had intervened in the proceedings.'

Another argument mainly relied upon against this construction is that the ten amendments proposed by Congress, and adopted by the States, are limitations upon the powers of the Federal government, and not upon the States; and we are referred to the cases of Barron v. The Mayor and City Council of Baltimore;⁴ Lessee of Livingston v. Moore and others;⁵ Twitchell v. The Commonwealth,⁶ as authorities for the position. This is admitted, and it follows that the seventh amendment could not be invoked in a State court to prohibit it from re-examining, on a writ of error, facts that had been tried by a jury in the court below. But this would seem to be the only consequence deducible from these cases or from the principles they assert. They have no pertinent, much less authoritative, application to the question in hand. That question is not whether the limitation in the amendment has any effect as to the powers of an appellate State court, but what is its effect upon the powers of the Federal appellate court? Is the limitation confined to cases of writs of error to the inferior Federal courts, or does it not also apply to writs of error to State courts in cases involving Federal questions? The latter is the precise question for our determination. Now, it will be admitted that the amendment, in terms, makes no such discrimination. They are: 'and no fact tried by a jury shall be otherwise re-examined in any court of the United States than according to the rules of the common law.' It is admitted that the clause applies to the appellate powers of the Supreme Court of the United States in all common law cases...