United States v. Watkins

• Decision Date: 18 October 1927
• Docket Number: No. 18893.,18893.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Northern District of California
• Parties: UNITED STATES v. WATKINS.

22 F.2d 437 (1927)

UNITED STATES v. WATKINS.

No. 18893.

District Court, N. D. California, S. D.

October 18, 1927.

George J. Hatfield, U. S. Atty., and Paul B. Gibson, Asst. U. S. Atty., both of San Francisco, Cal.

Bartley Crum and Thomas J. Riordan, both of San Francisco, Cal., for defendant.

ST. SURE, District Judge.

The defendant was indicted for murder committed in the United States military reservation of the Presidio of San Francisco. At the trial defendant moved for a directed verdict, upon the ground that the court was without jurisdiction, and the acts charged did not constitute an offense against the United States, under section 5339, Revised Statutes (18 USCA § 451). The motion was denied.

The Presidio of San Francisco has been known as such since some 35 years prior to United States occupation, in use both by Mexican and American governments as a military reservation. By the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo (9 Stat. 922) it, with the rest of the territory comprising the state of California, was ceded to the United States, and in 1850, on the admission of California into the Union, passed, without reservation of jurisdiction, to the state of California; the proprietary ownership remaining in the United States. In 1888, in this circuit, an indictment charging the crime of murder committed within the Presidio reservation, was quashed by Circuit Judges Sawyer and Hoffman. The court said: "We know of no other act of the state of California, through its Legislature or otherwise, by which a retrocession of its sovereign jurisdiction over the Presidio military reservation has been made to the United States. The result is the Presidio reservation is not within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, and the acts charged do not constitute an offense against the United States under section 5339, Rev. St., or of which this court has jurisdiction." United States v. Bateman (C. C.) 34 F. 86, containing a history of the status of the Presidio reservation to that time, reference to which is made for such information. The result, as quoted, indicates that the jurisdiction then lay in the state rather than the United States.

At the time of the decision in the Bateman Case, the Political Code of California contained the following section, enacted in 1872:

"The sovereignty and jurisdiction of this state extends to all places within its boundaries as established by the Constitution, but the extent of such jurisdiction over places that have been or may be ceded to, purchased, or condemned by the United States, is qualified by the terms of such cession or the laws under which such purchase or condemnation has been or may be made." Pol. Code Cal. § 33.

It is apparent that, for jurisdiction of the United States to have become exclusive, or qualified, since the decision in the Bateman Case, it is necessary that a retrocession of jurisdiction from the state of California to the United States has been made; the extent and nature of the jurisdiction thus ceded depending upon the terms of the grant. In seeming recognition of this fact, the Legislature of the state enacted, in 1891 (St. 1891, p. 262), the following statute:

"Section 1. The state of California hereby cedes to the United States of America exclusive jurisdiction over such piece or parcel of land as may have been or may be hereafter ceded or conveyed to the United States, during the time the United States shall be or remain the owner thereof, for all purposes except the administration of the criminal laws of this state and the service of civil process therein.

"Sec. 2. This act shall take effect immediately."

The necessary requisites for jurisdiction over lands such as the Presidio, and others acquired by the United States in the various methods for acquisition, are fully stated and discussed in Ft. Leavenworth Railroad Co. v. Lowe, 114 U. S. 525, 5 S. Ct. 995, 29 L. Ed. 264. The Ft. Leavenworth Reservation stood, as to the jurisdiction of the United States, on almost the same footing as the Presidio of San Francisco, up to the time of retrocession by the state of Kansas of sovereignty to the United States. Under the authority of the Ft. Leavenworth Case it may well be said that the language of the act of 1891 ceded exclusive jurisdiction of the Presidio reservation to the United States. The clause, "for all purposes except the administration of the criminal laws of this state and the service of civil process therein," may be interpreted, quoting and applying the language by the Supreme Court at page 534, 5 S. Ct. 1000, to mean that "only * * * civil and criminal process issued under the authority of the state, which must, of course, be for acts done within and cognizable by the state, may be executed within the ceded lands, notwithstanding the cession. Not a word is said from which we can infer that it was intended that the state should have a right to punish for acts done within the ceded lands. The whole apparent object is answered by considering the clause as meant to prevent these lands from becoming a sanctuary for fugitives from justice for acts done within the acknowledged jurisdiction of the state."

But evidently the act of 1891 was thought insufficient to confer exclusive jurisdiction in the United States, for in 1897 we find the state Legislature again passing upon the subject in the following language:

"Section 1. The state of California hereby cedes to the United States of America exclusive jurisdiction over all lands within this state now held, occupied, or reserved by the government of the United States for military purposes or defense, or which may hereafter be ceded or conveyed to said United States for such purposes: Provided, that a sufficient description by metes and bounds and a map or plat of such lands be filed in the proper office of record in the county in which the same are situated; and provided further, that this state reserves the right to serve and execute on said lands all civil process, not incompatible with this cession, and such criminal process as may lawfully issue under the authority of this state against any person or persons charged with crimes committed without said lands.

"Sec. 2. This Act shall take effect immediately."

Stats. Cal. 1897, p. 51.

A further act passed at the same session relinquishes the title of the state to lands from high-water mark to 300 yards beyond low-water mark, adjacent to islands held by the United States for military purposes or defense, with a reservation of civil and criminal process of the state identical with that in the act just noted, and conditioned, for validity of title in the United States, for the duration only of its holding and owning such adjacent lands. Stats. Cal. 1897, p. 74.

So far as this case is concerned it is admitted that the land upon which the crime was committed has been continuously occupied by the government since before California was admitted to the Union to the present time. Proof adduced at the trial shows that the Presidio lies within the city and county of San Francisco, and that a map of the Presidio, as then constituted, was filed for record in the office of the recorder of the city and county of San Francisco some time in 1897, presumably pursuant to the enactment me...