Thomas Battle v. United States
| Decision Date | 02 March 1908 |
| Docket Number | No. 438,438 |
| Citation | 52 L.Ed. 670,209 U.S. 36,28 S.Ct. 422 |
| Parties | THOMAS BATTLE, Plff. in Err., v. UNITED STATES |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Mr. John Randolph Cooper for plaintiff in error.
Assistant Attorney General Cooley for defendant in error.
This case comes up on a writ of error to the United States circuit court, after a conviction of the plaintiff in error of murder without capital punishment. The chief error assigned is that the court proceeded without jurisdiction,—an objection taken by demurrer and renewed in other forms. The crime was committed upon land bought by the United States in the city of Macon, on which it was building a postoffice and courthouse, and over which the state of Georgia had ceded jurisdiction; but it is said that murder in a postoffice of the United States has not been made an offense against the United States, whatever might be the power of Congress if it saw fit to put it forth.
There can be no doubt of the power of Congress to purchase land within a state for postoffices or courts, by consent of the legislature of the state, and to exercise exclusive legislation over the same. Postoffices are among the 'other needful buildings' for the erection of which, as well as of 'forts, magazines, arsenals, dockyards,' it is assumed that land will be bought, and for which land has been bought by the government all over the United States. Const. art. 1, § 8, cl. 17. Indeed, this is not denied. The power to establish postoffices is given by art. 1, § 8, cl. 7, in terms. See Kohl v. United States, 91 U. S. 367, 372, 22 L. ed. 449, 451; Burt v. Merchants' Ins. Co. 106 Mass. 356, 8 Am. Rep. 339; People ex rel. Trombley v. Humphrey, 23 Mich. 471, 475, 9 Am. Rep. 94; Sinks v. Reese, 19 Ohio St. 306, 2 Am. Rep. 397. The exclusive legislative power and jurisdiction of the United States is equally clear. Ft. Leavenworth R. Co. v. Lowe, 114 U. S. 525, 29 L. ed. 264, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 995; Benson v. United States, 146 U. S. 325, 36 L. ed. 991, 13 Sup. Ct. Rep. 60. So that the question is only whether the statutes of the United States extend to this case, which was the question intended to be raised.
By Rev. Stat. § 5339, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 3627, 'Every person who commits murder—first, within any fort, arsenal, dockyard, magazine, or in any other place or district of country under the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States; . . . shall suffer death;' and by the act of January 15, 1897, chap. 29, § 1, 29 Stat. at L. 487, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 3620, in such cases 'the jury may qualify their verdict by adding thereto 'without capital punishment," whereupon the sentence is imprisonment at hard labor for life. The jurisdiction of the United States courts under these sections is exclusive. Rev. Stat. § 711, U. S. Comp. Stat, 1901, p. 577. If the language of the Constitution is wide enough to authorize the purchase of land for a postoffice and courthouse, and the acceptance of a grant of jurisdiction, there is no reason for taking the language of the statute in any narrower sense. The argument, although ostensibly directed against the statute, must embrace the Constitution; and, as we have implied, such an argument comes many years too late.
There was an exception to a refusal of the court to...
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...Article 1, § 8, cl. 7. From this is implied the power to acquire land for post offices in the several states, Battle v. United States, 209 U. S. 36, 28 Sup. Ct. 422, 52 L. Ed. 670; and as an incident of this implied power to acquire land, the further power is implied to take it by right of ......
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