United States v. Kurtz, 530
| Decision Date | 26 October 1896 |
| Docket Number | No. 530,530 |
| Citation | 41 L.Ed. 346,17 S.Ct. 15,164 U.S. 49 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES v. KURTZ |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
This was a petition by Kurtz, who was clerk and commissioner of the circuit court for the Eastern district of Wisconsin, for fees alleged to have been earned by him in both capacities.
The case resulted in the allowance of a large number of disputed items, and a final judgment in favor of the petitioner in the sum of $165.10. 26 Ct. Cl. 630. The government appealed, and assigned as error the allowance of certain items specifically set forth in the opinion.
Asst. Atty. Gen. Dodge, for the United States.
C. C. Lancaster, for appellee.
1. The first assignment of error is taken to the allowance to the petitioner of clerk's fees for recording in the final record books the entries and proceedings in various criminal cases, consisting of the indictment or information, warrants, recognizances, judgments, and other proceedings, as required by rule of court, at 15 cents per folio. It seems that these records were made by him in compliance with a rule of the circuit court adopted November 3, 1890, requiring the clerk to keep a criminal final record book, in which should be recorded 'the indictment or information, and all recognizances, warrants, process (except writs of subpoena and proceedings thereunder), judgments, and other proceedings in every prosecution for violation of the criminal laws of the United States.' For making up these records the clerk charged a fee of 15 cents per folio, in pursuance of the eighth subdivision of Rev. St. § 828, which entitles him to this amount 'for entering any return, rule, order, continuance, judgment, decree or recognizance, or drawing any bond, or making any record, return or report.' The only objection was to the clerk's method of computing folios by treating each document, judgment, order, and direction of the court as a separate instrument for the enumeration of folios, instead of counting the folios of the record as one instrument continuously from beginning to end.
The assignment is well taken. By his method of computation the clerk charges for each entry, many of which are less than a dozen words in length, as for 100 words. This may be proper where the charge is made under the first clause of the paragraph, 'for entering any return, rule order,' etc., upon the journal of the court; but the evident intent of the statute is that, for the purpose of making up the record as a history of the case, the entire record shall be taken as one instrument.
2. The next item to which the government objects is to the allowance for making dockets, indexes, taxing costs, etc., in nine cases, in which defendants at first pleaded not guilty, and at a later day, with no steps or proceedings intervening, withdrew such plea, pleaded guilty, and judgment was entered upon such plea.
In this connection, section 828 provides as follows:
'For making dockets and indexes, issuing venire, taxing costs and all other services, on the trial or argument of a cause where issue is joined and testimony given, three dollars.'
For like services 'in a cause where issue is joined, but no testimony is given, two dollars.'
For like services 'in a cause which is dismissed or discontinued, or where judgment or decree is made or rendered without issue, one dollar.'
The argument of the government is that as the plea of not guilty, which constituted the issue, was withdrawn, and a plea of guilty subsequently entered, upon which judgment was rendered, the case should be treated as one in which no issue was ever joined, and that the condition in which the case stands when finally disposed of is the criterion for the fee to be charged; in other words, if the case be finally disposed of upon a plea of guilty, regardless of the issue previously joined, the clerk is only entitled to the fee which would have been allowed him if no issue had ever been joined.
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