Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/159/95/
Timestamp: 2019-04-19 05:13:51+00:00

Document:
The Supreme Court of the District of Columbia had jurisdiction and authority to determine the validity of the Act of July 23, 1892, c. 236, which authorized the waiver of a jury and to dispose of the question as to whether the record of a conviction before a judge without a jury, where the prisoner waived trial by jury according to statute, was legitimate proof of a first offense, and this being so, this Court cannot review the action of that court and the court of appeals in this particular on habeas corpus.
The general rule is that the writ of habeas corpus will not issue unless the court under whose warrant the petitioner is held is without jurisdiction, and that it cannot be used to correct errors.
Ordinarily a writ of habeas corpus will not lie where there is a remedy by writ of error or appeal; but in rare and exceptional cases, it may be issued although such remedy exists.
"The appellant, William Belt, alias William Jones, was indicted in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, holding a criminal court, and convicted on the twentieth day of February, A.D. 1894, of a second offense of larceny, and sentenced to three years' imprisonment in the penitentiary. The conviction was under section 1158 of the Revised Statutes of the United States for the District of Columbia, which provides that:"
" Every person convicted of feloniously stealing, taking, and carrying away any goods or chattels, or other personal property, of the value of thirty-five dollars or upward, . . . shall be sentenced to suffer imprisonment and labor, for the first offence for a period not less than one nor more than three years, and for the second offence for a period not less than three nor more than ten years."
without a jury -- a method of procedure claimed to be in violation of the Constitution of the United States, and therefore null and void. The objection was overruled and exception taken, and upon that exception the case has been brought by appeal to this court."
The opinion of the court of appeals will be found reported 22 Wash.Law Rep. 447. The court held that the Act of Congress of July 23, 1892, c. 236, 27 Stat. 261, providing that in prosecutions in the police court of the District in which, according to the Constitution, the accused would be entitled to a jury trial, the accused might in open court expressly waive such trial by jury and request to be tried by the judge, in which case the trial should be by the judge, and the judgment and sentence should have the same force and effect as if entered and pronounced upon the verdict of a jury, was constitutional and valid, and that the record of a trial, conviction, and sentence by a judge under such a waiver was competent evidence, on an indictment for a similar offense, to prove that it was the defendant's second offense of the same kind.
It is contended that the sentence as for a second offense under which petitioner is held is void because the first conviction of petitioner was void and of no effect in law, inasmuch as the constitutional requirement of trial by jury in criminal cases could not be waived by the accused person, though in pursuance of a statute that authorized such waiver.
Does the ground of this application go to the jurisdiction or authority of the Supreme Court of the District, or rather is it not an allegation of mere error? If the latter, it cannot be reviewed in this proceeding. In re Schneider, 148 U. S. 162, and cases cited.
the plea, both as matter of law and of fact, cannot be doubted. . . . It may be confessed that it is not always very easy to determine what matters go to the jurisdiction of a court so as to make its action when erroneous a nullity. But the general rule is that when the court has jurisdiction by law of the defense charged and of the party who is so charged, its judgments are not nullities."
And the application was denied.
"Upon the question of the right of one charged with crime to waive a trial by jury and elect to be tried by the court, when there is a positive legislative enactment giving the right so to do and conferring power on the court to try the accused in such a case, there are numerous decisions by state courts upholding the validity of such proceeding, Dailey v. State, 4 Ohio St. 57; Dillingham v. State, 5 Ohio St. 280; People v. Noll, 20 Cal. 164; State v. Worden, 46 Conn. 349; State v. Albee, 61 N.H. 423, 428."
And see Edwards v. State, 45 N.J.L. 419, 423; Ward v. People, 30 Mich. 116; Connelly v. State, 60 Ala. 89; Murphy v. State, 97 Ind. 579; State v. Sackett, 39 Minn. 69; Lavery v. Commonwealth, 101 Penn.St. 560; League v. State, 36 Md. 257, cited by the Court of Appeals.
cannot review the action of that court and the Court of Appeals in this particular on habeas corpus.
The general rule is that the writ of habeas corpus will not issue unless the court under whose warrant the petitioner is held is without jurisdiction, and that it cannot be used to correct errors. Ordinarily, the writ will not lie where there is a remedy by writ of error or appeal, but in rare and exceptional cases, it may be issued although such remedy exists. We have heretofore decided that this Court has no appellate jurisdiction over the judgments of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia in criminal cases or on habeas corpus, but whether or not the judgments of the Supreme Court of the District, reviewable in the Court of Appeals, may be reviewed ultimately in this Court in such cases when the validity of a statute of, or an authority exercised under, the United States is drawn in question we have as yet not been obliged to determine. In re Chapman, 156 U. S. 211. And that inquiry is immaterial here, as we have no doubt that the courts below had jurisdiction.

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