Source: https://caselaw.findlaw.com/us-supreme-court/233/587.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 09:53:11+00:00

Document:
Messrs. Miguel Estudillo and Theodore Martin for plaintiffs in error.
Ten persons described as Indians were, in July, 1912, indicted for the murder of William H. Stanley, a white person, 'at, upon, and within the limits of a United States Indian Reservation known as the Cahuilla Indian Reservation in the county of Riverside, within the southern division of the southern district of California, and within the jurisdiction' of the court below, in violation of 273, 275, and 328 of the Penal Code of 1909. [35 Stat. at L. 1143, 1151, chap. 321, U. S. Comp. Stat. Supp. 1911, pp. 1671, 1972, 1685.] As the result of a trial, four of the accused were acquitted, and the six who are plaintiffs in error here were convicted of murder in the second degree, and sentenced to ten years' imprisonment each, and prosecute this direct writ of error to reverse such conviction and sentence. There are one hundred assignments of error, but before we come to consider them we must dispose of a motion made by the government to dismiss on the ground that we are without jurisdiction because the case is susceptible only of review by the circuit court of appeals of the ninth circuit.
The settled significance of these provisions we have just pointed out in the case of Itow v. United States, just decided [ 233 U.S. 581 , 58 L. ed. --, 34 Sup. Ct. Rep. 699], and under the principle there applied it follows that we must determine the right to direct review by ascertaining whether any of the issues enumerated in the provisions of 238 were below involved in the cause. Coming to apply this test, only three out of the matters assigned as error have any conceivable relation to the conditions defined by the statute as essential to give the right to a direct review. They are: (1) a challenge of the jurisdiction of the court below; (2) a contention as to the effect of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo [9 Stat. at L. 922]; (3) an assertion that a constitutional question was involved in the action of the trial court in admitting over objection, testimony as to a statement or admission of Ambrosio Apapas, one of the accused.
As to the first, while it was raised below, it is obviously inadequate to sustain the right to direct review, since, under the writ of error, the whole case is brought here, and not the question of jurisdiction alone, as provided in 238, and because there in no certificate as to the jurisdiction, as required by the section. Maynard v. Hecht, 151 U.S. 324 , 38 L. ed. 179, 14 Sup. Ct. Rep. 353; Chappell v. United States, 160 U.S. 499, 507 , 40 S. L. ed. 510, 512, 16 Sup. Ct. Rep. 397; Courtney v. Pradt, 196 U.S. 89, 91 , 92 S., 49 L. ed. 398, 399, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 208.
While the second contention based upon the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was raised in the lower court, it in no sense involved the validity or construction of the treaty, and therefore affords no support for the right to directly review. In substance the proposition concerning the treaty is this: that as the ancestors of the accused prior to the termination of the war with Mexico were citixens of Mexico, and became by the were citizens of Mexico, and became by the the state of California, they were therefore [233 U.S. 587, 590] not amenable to prosecution in the courts of the United States for the crime of murder committed within the state of California, however much they may have been susceptible of being prosecuted for such crime in an appropriate state court. But assuming, for argument's sake, the premise based on the treaty to be sound, and disregarding, for brevity's sake, the fact that the accused were tribal Indians, leading a tribal life, and living on a tribal reservation under the control of the United States, the deduction based on the premise is so absolutely devoid of merit as not in any real sense to involve the construction of the treaty. We so say because the prosecution was for murder committed by Indians on a United States Indian reservation, and therefore was for a crime against the authority of the United States, expressly punishable by statute ( 328, Penal Code), and within the cognizance of the courts of the United States, without reference to the citizenship of the accused, as settled by a long line of anthority. United States v. Kagama, 118 U.S. 375 , 30 L. ed. 228, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1109; United States v. Celestine, 215 U.S. 278 , 54 L. ed. 195, 30 Sup. Ct. Rep. 93; Donnelly v. United States, 228 U.S. 270 , 57 L. ed. 831, 33 Sup. Ct. Rep. 449, Ann. Cas. 1913E, 710; United States v. Sandoval, 231 U.S. 39 , 58 L. ed. --, 34 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1. Indeed, in answering the argument of the government on the motion to dismiss, if not in express terms, at least virtually, it is conceded that the two propositions we have disposed of thus are inadequate to sustain the resort to a direct writ of error. But it is urged that the third contention plainly is sufficient for that purpose, that contention, as we have said, being based upon an exception taken to the action of the trial court in receiving testimony concerning an alleged statement or admission made by one of the accused, Apapas. But we search the record in vain to find the slightest reference made to the Constitution of the United States at the time the objection referred to was taken, or anything whatever to indicate in any manner that the attention of the court below was directed to the fact that there [233 U.S. 587, 591] was any controversy or dispute involving the Constitution of the United States.

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