Source: https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/144/263/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 22:43:41+00:00

Document:
A citizen of the United States, in the custody of a United States Marshall under a lawful commitment to answer for an offense against the United States, has the right to be protected by the United States against lawless violence; this right is a right secured to him by the Constitution and laws of the United States, and a conspiracy to injure or oppress him in its free exercise or enjoyment is punishable under section 5508 of the Revised Statutes.
The consolidation, under section 1024 of the Revised Statutes, of several indictments against different persons for one conspiracy, if not excepted to at the time, cannot be objected to after verdict.
An act of Congress requiring courts to be held at three places in a judicial district and prosecutions for offenses committed in certain counties to be tried, and writs and recognizances to be returned, at each place does not affect the power of the grand jury, sitting at either place, to present indictments for offenses committed anywhere within the district.
A jury in a capital case who, after considering their verdict for forty hours, have announced in open court that they are unable to agree may be discharged by the court of its own motion and at its discretion, and the defendant be put on trial by another jury.
A juror summoned in a capital case who states on voir dire that he has conscientious scruples in regard to the infliction of the death penalty for crime may be challenged by the Government for cause.
"the laws of the State in which the court is held shall be the rules of decision as to the competency of witnesses in the courts of the United States in trials at common law, and in equity and admiralty,"
has no application to criminal trials.
Unless by express statute, the competency of a witness to testify in one State is not affected by his conviction and sentence for felony in another State.
A pardon of a convict, although granted after he has served out his sentence, restores his competency to testify to any facts within his knowledge.
Under section 1033 of the Revised Statutes, any person indicted of a capital offense has the right to have delivered to him, at least two days before the trial, a list of the witnesses to be produced on the trial for proving the indictment, and if he seasonably claims this right, it is error to put him on trial, and to allow witnesses to testify against him, without having previously delivered to him such a list; and it seems that the error is not cured by his acquittal of the capital offense and conviction of a lesser offense charged in the same indictment.
Upon an indictment for conspiracy, acts or declarations of one conspirator, made after the conspiracy has ended or not in furtherance of the conspiracy, are not admissible in evidence against the other conspirators.
1890, of the District Court for the Northern District of Texas, sitting at Dallas, in that District, against Eugene Logan, William Williams, Verna Wilkerson, and Clinton Rutherford, for conspiracy to injure and oppress citizens of the United States in the free exercise of a right secured to them by the constitution and laws of the United States, and for murder committed in the prosecution of the conspiracy, and were forthwith transmitted to the Circuit Court.
"together with divers other evil-disposed persons, whose names to the grand jurors aforesaid are unknown, did then and there combine, conspire, and confederate by and between themselves, with force and arms, to injure and oppress them, the said Charles Marlow, Epp Marlow, Alfred Marlow, George W. Marlow, William D. Burkhardt, and Louis Clift, then and there citizens of the United States of America, in the free exercise and enjoyment of a right, and because they were then and there exercising and enjoying said right, then and there secured to them . . . by the Constitution and laws of the United States, to-wit, the right to then and there be protected by said Deputy United States Marshal from the assault of"
there to be held in the power, custody, and control of said Deputy United States Marshal under and by virtue of said writs heretofore set forth, and the further right, while in said custody, to be secure in their persons from bodily harm and injury and assaults and cruelties until they . . . had been discharged by due process of the laws of the United States;"
and that the defendants, in pursuance of such combination and conspiracy, and in the prosecution thereof, on January 19, 1889, and in the night-time, went upon the highway in disguise, and waylaid and assaulted the said prisoners, while in the power, custody, and control of said Deputy United States Marshal, with loaded shotguns, revolvers, and Winchester rifles, and, in pursuance and prosecution of the conspiracy, feloniously, willfully, and of their malice aforethought, and from a deliberate and premeditated design to effect his death, did with those weapons kill and murder Epp Marlow, then and there in the peace of the United States being (charging the murder in due technical form) "contrary to the form of the statute in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the United States of America."
Indictments 33 and 36 were substantially like 34. Indictment 35 added John Levell and Phlete A. Martin as defendants, and (besides counts like those in the other indictments, omitting, however, the charge of murder) contained counts alleging a conspiracy to obstruct the Deputy Marshal and the Jailer in the execution of the writs of commitment, and, in pursuance thereof, an attempt to take the prisoners from the jail on January 17th, and a murder of some of them on the highway on January 19, 1889.
Court, against Logan, Martin, and other persons (some of whom were not the same as in the other four indictments) containing charges, in various forms, like those in the added counts in indictment 35.
"excepting to the several indictments presented against them, and by order of this court consolidated, and now being prosecuted under case No. 34 on the docket of said court, charging said defendants with a conspiracy to injure and oppress Charles Marlow and others in the free exercise and enjoyment of rights secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States, move the court to quash said indictments and dismiss this prosecution, for the following reasons:"
"1st. The said indictments are found and presented by a grand jury at the January Term of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, holding session at Dallas, and the allegations of said indictments show that the offenses therein charged were committed, if at all, in the subdivision of said District, offenses committed in which are cognizable alone at the term of the District and Circuit Court to be held at Graham in said Young County; therefore this court is without jurisdiction."
United States, a right to be protected by a Deputy Marshal of the United States, in whose custody they were, under process of this court; and the said indictments are bad, because no such right as therein alleged is secured to said persons by the Constitution and laws of the United States; and therefore this court has no jurisdiction."
"3d. Said indictments charge no offense against the laws of the United States, or within the jurisdiction of this court, but show upon their face, by the allegations thereof, that the offense committed, if any, was against the laws of the State of Texas, of which the courts of said State have exclusive jurisdiction."
On October 30, 1890, the District Attorney moved the court for an order to set aside the former order of consolidation, so far as to separate the five earlier indictments; to confirm the consolidation of indictments 33, 34, 35, and 36; to sever Levell and Martin from their codefendants; and to order the consolidated case to stand for trial against Logan, Williams, Wilkerson, and Rutherford. The court made an order accordingly, except that, as to Williams, the case was continued on his application, and with the consent of the District Attorney. To this order, no exception was taken by the defendants.
Logan, Wilkerson, and Rutherford then severally pleaded "not guilty," and a trial was had, resulting, on November 22, 1890, in this verdict: "We, the jury, find the defendant Clinton Rutherford not guilty. The jury cannot agree as to Eugene Logan and Verna Wilkerson." The court approved the verdict, and ordered it to be recorded; and also ordered that Rutherford be discharged from the indictment, and that Logan and Wilkerson stand committed to the custody of the marshal until further order.
Court, charging Collier, Johnson, Levell, Marion Wallace, Samuel Waggoner, William Hollis, Richard Cook, and five others named, but not including Logan, with the same conspiracy, and, in pursuance thereof, with the attempt to kill on January 17th, and the murder on January 19th. No exception was taken to this order.
On motion of the District Attorney suggesting the deaths of Williams and Collier, the indictments were dismissed as to them.
The remaining defendants in indictment 37 "excepted to the several indictments" so consolidated, and made a motion to quash them on the second and third grounds stated in the former motion to quash. This motion was overruled, and these defendants excepted to the overruling of the motion, and then pleaded "not guilty."
Annexed to this plea were copies of the verdict and of the order of the court thereon, above stated.
Copies of the indictments, having indorsed on each the names of the witnesses upon whose testimony it had been found by the grand jury, were delivered to the defendants therein more than two days before the trial, but no list of the witnesses to be produced at the trial for proving the indictment was delivered to any of the defendants. When the case was called for trial, and the government announced that it was ready, the defendants suggested these facts, and moved the court that they be not required to proceed further until such lists should be furnished them. The court overruled the motion, and the defendants excepted.
"because the jury in the United States court has nothing to do with the penalty, but passes alone upon the guilt or innocence of the defendants, and because it is not one of the disqualifications of jury service under the laws of the United States, and because the defendants were unlawfully deprived of the service of each of said jurors, who had been regularly drawn and summoned on the special venire heretofore issued herein as their triers in this cause."
The court overruled all these objections, and the defendants excepted.
At the trial, 40 witness, whose names were not indorsed on either indictment, were called and sworn to testify on behalf of the government. As to each and all of these witnesses, the defendants objected to their testifying, because neither their names nor a list containing their names had been delivered to the defendants two days before the trial, and because the defendants had objected, on this ground, to proceeding when the case was called for trial. The court overruled the objection, and admitted these witnesses to testify to material facts necessary to prove the indictments and to make out the case for the government, and the defendants excepted.
Phlete A. Martin and one Spear, offered as witnesses by the government, were shown, by certified copies of the record produced and exhibited to them, to have been convicted and sentenced for felony. Martin was convicted, in the superior court of Iredell county, in the State of North Carolina, of felonious homicide, and was sentenced in August, 1883, to imprisonment for six months in the county jail, and served out his sentence. Spear was convicted, in the District Court of Tarrant county, in the State of Texas, of two larcenies, which were felonies by the law of Texas, and was sentenced in January, 1883, to two terms of imprisonment of two years each, and served out his sentence; and the government offered and read in evidence "a full proclamation of pardon" of those offenses issued to Spear by the governor of Texas in May, 1889.
"because, under the laws of Texas, they are incompetent to testify under and by virtue of an express statute, and because, the offenses for which they were convicted being infamous crimes, they are incompetent to testify in the United States court held within the State of Texas;"
proclamation of pardon cannot have the retroactive effect of rendering said witness competent to testify to facts which, when they came to his knowledge, he was incompetent to testify to."
The court overruled all these objections and admitted the testimony of both witnesses to material facts, and afterwards instructed the jury that they were competent, and that the convictions and sentences affected their credibility only. The defendants excepted to the admission of this evidence, and to the instruction of the court thereon.
Shortly before October term, 1888, of the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Texas, held at Graham, the four Marlows named in the indictment, and one Boone Marlow (the five being brothers) were arrested on warrants issued by a commissioner of the Circuit Court of the United States on complaints charging them with larceny in the Indian Territory, within the exclusive jurisdiction of the United States, and at that term they were indicted for that offense, and enlarged on bail, and went to live on a farm in Young County, about 12 miles from Graham, known as the "Denson Farm."
and partly disguised, entered the jail, surrounded the steel cage in which the four Marlows were confined, and attempted to enter it; but, being resisted by the Marlows, and one of the mob knocked down and injured, they finally withdrew, without doing any actual violence to the prisoners.
On January 19, 1889, after dark, Johnson, the deputy marshal, undertook to remove the Marlows, with Burkhardt and Clift, imprisoned under like commitments, to the jail of an adjoining county. The six prisoners, shackled together, two and two (Alfred with Charles, Epp with George, and Burkhardt with Clift) by irons riveted around one leg of each, and connected by a chain, were placed in a hack driven by Martin, who was county attorney. Johnson, the defendant Wallace, and two other men, all armed, followed in another hack, and the defendant Waggoner and another man, also armed, accompanied them in a buggy. When the three vehicles, in close order, had gone along the highway about two miles from Graham, they were attacked, near a run called "Dry Creek," by a large body of men, armed and disguised, who opened fire upon the prisoners. Martin and the guards were in league with the attacking party. .The four Marlows, in spite of their shackles, immediately dropped out of the hack, and wrested fire-arms, either from the guards or from their assailants, with which they defended themselves, killed two of the mob, wounded others, and finally put the rest to flight. Johnson was wounded, and he and all the guards also fled. Alfred Marlow and Epp Marlow were killed. The other two Marlows were severely wounded, but succeeded in freeing themselves from their brothers' dead bodies, took possession of the hack in which they had come, and, together with Burkhart and Clift, made their way to a neighboring village and thence to the Denson Farm.
learning the facts of the case, to interfere in the matter. The Marlows refused to give themselves up to anyone except the United States Marshal or one Morton, his deputy, and no violence was offered to them, but Collier, with a body of men, kept guard near the house for some days, until the arrival of Morton, who, against some remonstrance on the part of Collier, took the Marlows into his custody and removed them to Dallas. They were afterwards tried and acquitted on the charges against them.
There was evidence in the case tending to show that Johnson, while lying wounded at his home after the fight, assented, at the solicitation of some of the defendants, to the publication in a newspaper of a statement that Logan was one of the guards at Dry creek on the night of January 19th. The Government, not for the purpose of contradicting Johnson, but as independent evidence that Logan took part in the fight not as a guard, but as one of the mob, called several witnesses to prove declarations of Johnson made after the fight, some on the same night and others some days after, that Logan was not a guard on that night, had meant to go as a guard, but had been excused from going, and must have been the person who informed the mob of the intended removal of the prisoners. The defendants objected to the admission of this evidence, among other grounds, because the declarations were not made in Logan's presence, and were made after the crime had been committed and the conspirators had separated. The judge overruled the objection and admitted the evidence, and the defendants excepted to its admission.
funeral of one of the conspirators and elsewhere, that Logan had been present at the fight, and not as a guard, and had been wounded there.
"When a citizen of the United States is committed to the custody of a United States Marshal, or to a state jail, by process issuing from one of the courts of the United States, to be held, in default of bail, to await his trial on a criminal charge within the exclusive jurisdiction of the national courts, such citizen has a right, under the Constitution and laws of the United States, to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury, and, until tried or discharged by due process of law, has the right, under said Constitution and laws, to be treated with humanity, and to be protected against all unlawful violence while he is deprived of the ordinary means of defending and protecting himself."
To this instruction, as well as to the refusal to give the instruction requested, the defendants excepted.
The judge further defined the crimes charged -- of conspiracy and of murder in the prosecution of the conspiracy, and submitted to the jury the questions whether the defendants were guilty of the conspiracy only, and whether they were guilty of the murder also.
Many other rulings and instructions excepted to at the trial are omitted from this statement, because not passed upon by this Court.
On April 17, 1891, the jury found the defendants Logan, Waggoner, and Wallace guilty of the conspiracy charged in the indictments, and not guilty of murder, and acquitted the other defendants. The court thereupon ordered and adjudged that the other defendants be discharged, and that Logan, Waggoner, and Wallace were guilty of conspiracy as charged in the indictments, and sentenced each of them to pay a fine of $5,000, to be imprisoned for a term of 10 years, and to be ineligible to any office or place of honor, profit, or trust created by the Constitution or laws of the United States. On June 23, 1891, they sued out this writ of error under the act of March 3, 1891, c. 517, § 5, 26 Stat. p. 827.
5509 of the Revised Statutes for conspiracy and for murder in the prosecution of the conspiracy, and were convicted, under section 5508, of a conspiracy to injure and oppress citizens of the United States in the free exercise and enjoyment of the right to be secure from assault or bodily harm, and to be protected against unlawful violence, while in the custody of a marshal of the United States under a lawful commitment by a commissioner of the Circuit Court of the United States for trial for an offense against the laws of the United States.
"if two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any citizen in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same, . . . they shall be fined not more than five thousand dollars, and imprisoned not more than ten years, and shall, moreover, be thereafter ineligible to any office or place of honor, profit, or trust created by the Constitution or laws of the United States."
instruct the jury as requested, and by the instructions given by him to the jury.
"The government of the Union, though limited in its powers, is supreme within its sphere of action. . . . No trace is to be found in the Constitution of an intention to create a dependence of the Government of the Union on those of the States for the execution of the great powers assigned to it. Its means are adequate to its ends; and on those means alone was it expected to rely for the accomplishment of its ends. To impose on it the necessity of resorting to means which it cannot control, which another government may furnish or withhold, would render its course precarious, the result of its measures uncertain, and create a dependence on other governments, which might disappoint its most important designs, and is incompatible with the language of the Constitution."
17 U. S. 4 Wheat. 316, 17 U. S. 405, 17 U. S. 424.
Among the powers which the Constitution expressly confers upon Congress is the power to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the powers specifically granted to it, and all other powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any department or officer thereof. In the exercise of this general power of legislation, Congress may use any means, appearing to it most eligible and appropriate, which are adapted to the end to be accomplished and are consistent with the letter and the spirit of the Constitution. McCulloch v. Maryland, 4 Wheat. 316, 17 U. S. 421; Juilliard v. Greenman, 110 U. S. 421, 110 U. S. 440-441.
Although the Constitution contains no grant, general or specific, to Congress of the power to provide for the punishment of crimes except piracies and felonies on the high seas, offenses against the law of nations, treason, and counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, no one doubts the power of Congress to provide for the punishment of all crimes and offenses against the United States, whether committed within one of the States of the Union or within territory over which Congress has plenary and exclusive jurisdiction.
To accomplish this end, Congress has the right to enact laws for the arrest and commitment of those accused of any such crime or offense, and for holding them in safe custody until indictment and trial; and persons arrested and held pursuant to such laws are in the exclusive custody of the United States, and are not subject to the judicial process or executive warrant of any State. Ableman v. Booth, 21 How. 506; Tarble's Case, 13 Wall. 397; Robb v. Connolly, 111 U. S. 624. The United States, having the absolute right to hold such prisoners, have an equal duty to protect them, while so held, against assault or injury from any quarter. The existence of that duty on the part of the government necessarily implies a corresponding right of the prisoners to be so protected; and this right of the prisoners is a right secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
"shall make such other provision as he may deem expedient and necessary for the safekeeping of the prisoners arrested or committed under the authority of the United States, until permanent provision for that purpose is made by law."
verdict, that, while Charles Marlow and five others, citizens of the United States, were in the custody and control of a deputy marshal of the United States, under writs of commitment from a commissioner of the Circuit Court, in default of bail, to answer to indictments for an offense against the laws of the United States, the plaintiffs in error conspired to injure and oppress them in the free exercise and enjoyment of the right secured to them by the Constitution and laws of the United States to be protected, while in such custody and control of the deputy marshal, against assault and bodily harm, until they had been discharged by due process of the laws of the United States.
If, as some of the evidence introduced by the government tended to show, the deputy marshal and his assistants made no attempt to protect the prisoners, but were in league and collusion with the conspirators, that does not lessen or impair the right of protection secured to the prisoners by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
The prisoners were in the exclusive custody and control of the United States, under the protection of the United States, and in the peace of the United States. There was a coextensive duty on the part of the United States to protect against lawless violence persons so within their custody, control, protection, and peace; and a corresponding right of those persons, secured by the Constitution and laws of the United States, to be so protected by the United States. If the officers of the United States, charged with the performance of the duty, in behalf of the United States, of affording that protection and securing that right, neglected or violated their duty, the prisoners were not the less under the shield and panoply of the United States.
so strongly relied on those cases, that it is fit to review them in detail.
"Rights and immunities created by or dependent upon the Constitution of the United States can be protected by Congress. The form and the manner of the protection may be such as Congress, in the legitimate exercise of its legislative discretion, shall provide. These may be varied to meet the necessities of the particular right to be protected."
The decision in that case was that the Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution did not confer on citizens of the United States the right to vote, but only the right of exemption from being denied by a State the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude; and therefore that sections 3 and 4 of the enforcement act of May 31, 1870 (16 Stat. pp. 140, 141, reenacted in Rev.Stat. §§ 2007-2009, 5506), undertaking to punish the denial or obstruction of the right to vote under the laws of any State or Territory, and not grounded on such discrimination, were unconstitutional.
grievances, or for anything else connected with the powers or the duties of the National Government, is an attribute of national citizenship, and, as such, under the protection of, and guarantied by, the United States. The very idea of a government, republican in form, implies a right on the part of its citizens to meet peaceably for consultation in respect to public affairs, and to petition for a redress of grievances. If it had been alleged in these counts that the object of the defendants was to prevent a meeting for such a purpose, the cause would have been within the statute, and within the scope of the sovereignty of the United States."
92 U. S. 92 U.S. 552-553.
2d. It was held that the second amendment of the Constitution, declaring that "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed," was equally limited in its scope. 92 U.S. 92 U. S. 553.
"Sovereignty, for this purpose, rests alone with the States. It is no more the duty or within the power of the United States to punish for a conspiracy to falsely imprison or murder within a State than it would be to punish for false imprisonment or murder itself."
92 U.S. 92 U. S. 553-554.
jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, gave no greater power to Congress. 92 U.S. 92 U. S. 555.
"The right to vote in the States comes from the States, but the right of exemption from the prohibited discrimination comes from the United States. The first has not been granted or secured by the Constitution of the United States, but the last has been."
92 U.S. 92 U. S. 556.
Nothing else was decided in United States v. Cruikshank, except questions of the technical sufficiency of the indictment having no bearing upon the larger questions.
"It is undoubtedly a sound proposition that, whenever a right is guarantied by the Constitution of the United States, Congress has the power to provide for its enforcement, either by implication arising from the correlative duty of Government to protect, wherever a right to the citizen is conferred, or under the general power (contained in article 1, § 8, par. 18)"
"to make all laws necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other powers vested by this Constitution in the government of the United States, or any department or officer thereof."
of the United States only by a declaration that the State or the United States shall not violate or abridge them, it is at once understood that they are not created or conferred by the Constitution, but that the Constitution only guaranties that they shall not be impaired by the State, or the United States, as the case may be. The fulfillment of this guaranty by the United States is the only duty with which that Government is charged. The affirmative enforcement of the rights and privileges themselves, unless something more is expressed, does not devolve upon it, but belongs to the state government as a part of its residuary sovereignty."
"A right or an immunity, whether created by the Constitution or only guarantied by it, even without any express delegation of power, may be protected by Congress."
100 U.S. 100 U. S. 310.
In Ex parte Virginia, 100 U. S. 339, at the same Term, the Court upheld the constitutionality of the civil rights act of March 1, 1975, c. 114, § 4 (18 Stat. p. 336), enacting that no citizen, having all other qualifications provided by law, should be disqualified from service as a juror in any court of the United States or of any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, and that any officer charged with the duty of selecting jurors who should exclude any citizen for such cause should be guilty of a misdemeanor.
protected from violence when so under arrest as aforesaid." That indictment was on section 5519 of the Revised Statutes, which assumed to punish a conspiracy for the purpose of depriving any person or class of persons of the equal protection of the laws. The Court, following the cases of Reese and Cruikshank above stated, held that section to be unconstitutional because broader than the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments to the Constitution of the United States would justify. The case is clearly distinguished from the case at bar by the facts that those prisoners were in the custody of officers not of the United States, but of the State, and that the laws of the equal protection of which they were alleged to have been deprived were the laws of the State only.
of the fundamental rights specified in the amendment. . . . Such legislation cannot properly cover the whole domain of rights appertaining to life, liberty, and property, defining them, and providing for their vindication. That would be to establish a code of municipal law regulative of all private rights between man and man in society. It would be to make Congress take the place of the state legislatures, and to supersede them."
109 U.S. 109 U. S. 11, 109 U. S. 13.
"But the distinction is not well taken. The power in either case arises out of the circumstance that the function in which the party is engaged, or the right which he is about to exercise, is dependent on the laws of the United States. In both cases it is the duty of that Government to see that he may exercise this right freely, and to protect him from violence while so doing or on account of so doing. This duty does not arise solely from the interest of the party concerned, but from the necessity of the Government itself that its service shall be free from the adverse influence of force and fraud practiced on its agents and that the votes by which its members of Congress and it President are elected shall be the free votes of the electors, and the officers thus chosen the free and uncorrupted choice of those who have the right to take part in that choice."
110 U.S. 110 U. S. 662.
"The statute itself is careful to limit its operation to an obstruction or oppression in 'the free exercise of a right or privilege secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having exercised such rights.' The protection of this section extends to no other right, to no right or privilege dependent on a law or laws of the State. Its object is to guaranty safety and protection to persons in the exercise of rights dependent on the laws of the United States, including, of course, the Constitution and treaties, as well as statutes, and it does not, in this section at least, design to protect any other rights."
"The right here guarantied is not the mere right of protection against personal violence. This, if the result of an ordinary quarrel or malice, would be cognizable under the laws of the State and by its courts. But it is something different from that. It is the right to remain on the land in order to perform the requirements of the act of Congress, and, according to its rules, perfect his incipient title. Whenever the acts complained of are of a character to prevent this, or throw obstruction in the way of exercising this right, and for the purpose and with intent to prevent it, or to injure or oppress a person because he has exercised it, then, because it is a right asserted under the law of the United States, and granted by that law, those acts come within the purview of the statute and of the constitutional power of Congress to make such statute."
112 U.S. 112 U. S. 80.
"This particular section is a substantial reenactment of section 6 of the original act, which is found among the sections that deal exclusively with the political rights of citizens, especially their right to vote, and were evidently intended to prevent discriminations in this particular against voters on account 'of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.'"
120 U.S. 120 U. S. 691. He did not say that the section in question, but only that the sections among which it is found, "deal exclusively with the political rights of citizens." To have said that the section in question was so limited would have been in direct conflict with the decision in United States v. Waddell, above cited, to which the Chief Justice, at the outset of his discussion of the question whether "citizen" included an alien, had referred as establishing the constitutionality of the section.
United States, and the private right of a citizen, having made a homestead entry, to be protected from interference while remaining in the possession of the land for the time of occupancy which Congress has enacted shall entitle him to a patent.
In the case at bar, the right in question does not depend upon any of the amendments to the Constitution, but arises out of the creation and establishment by the Constitution itself of a National Government, paramount and supreme within its sphere of action. Any Government which has power to indict, try, and punish for crime, and to arrest the accused, and hold them in safekeeping until trial, must have the power and the duty to protect against unlawful interference its prisoners so held, as well as its executive and judicial officers charged with keeping and trying them.
In the very recent case of Neagle, 135 U. S. 1, at October Term, 1889, it was held that, although there was no express act of Congress authorizing the appointment of a deputy marshal or other officer to attend a justice of this Court while traveling in his circuit, and to protect him against assault or injury, it was within the power and the duty of the Executive Department to protect a judge of any of the courts of the United States when there was just reason to believe that he would be in personal danger while executing the duties of his office; that an assault upon such a judge while in discharge of his official duties was a breach of the peace of the United States, as distinguished from the peace of the State in which the assault took place; and that a Deputy Marshal of the United States, specially charged with the duty of protecting and guarding a judge of a court of the United States, had imposed upon him the duty of doing whatever might be necessary for that purpose, even to the taking of human life.
are met with the theory that the Government of the United States does not rest upon the soil and territory of the country. We think that this theory is founded on an entire misconception of the nature and powers of that Government. We hold it to be an incontrovertible principle that the Government of the United States may, be means of physical force, exercised through its official agents, execute on every foot of American soil the powers and functions that belong to it. This necessarily involves the power to command obedience to its laws, and hence the power to keep the peace to that extent."
"That there is a peace of the United States; that a man assaulting a judge of the United States while in the discharge of his duties violates that peace; that, in such case, the Marshal of the United States stands in the same relation to the peace of the United States which the sheriff of the county does to the peace of the State of California -- are questions too clear to need argument to prove them."
135 U.S. 135 U. S. 69.
The United States are bound to protect against lawless violence all persons in their service or custody in the course of the administration of justice. This duty and the correlative right of protection are not limited to the magistrates and officers charged with expounding and executing the laws, but apply with at least equal force to those held in custody on accusation of crime and deprived of all means of self-defense.
For these reasons, we are of opinion that the crime of which the plaintiffs in error were indicted and convicted was within the reach of the constitutional powers of Congress, and was covered by section 5508 of the Revised Statutes, and it remains to be considered whether they were denied any legal right by the other rulings and instructions of the Circuit Court.
or more acts or transactions connected together, or for two or more acts or transactions of the same class of crimes or offenses, which may be properly joined, instead of having several indictments the whole may be joined in one indictment in separate counts; and, if two or more indictments are found in such cases, the court may order them to be consolidated."
By the second order of consolidation, made on a subsequent day of the same term, the five earlier indictments were ordered to be separated, so that, in this respect, the case stood as if they had never been consolidated with the four later ones. Two of the defendants in one of these four indictments were ordered to be severed and tried separately, and the former order of consolidation was confirmed as to the four indictments, all of which, as they then stood, were charges against the same persons "for the same act or transaction," or at least "for two or more acts or transactions connected together," and therefore within the very terms and purpose of the section of the Revised Statutes above quoted, and might perhaps have been ordered, in the discretion of the court, to be tried together, independently of any statute upon the subject. See Ex parte Yarbrough, 110 U. S. 651, 110 U. S. 655; United States v. Marchant, 12 Wheat. 480; Withers v. Commonwealth, 5 Serg. & R. 59. And to this order no exception was taken.
the new indictment tried together with the other four. Having gone to trial, without objection, on the indictments as consolidated under the last order of the court, it was not open to any of them to take the objection for the first time after verdict.
"And all prosecutions in either of said districts for offenses against the laws of the United States shall be tried in that division of the district to which process for the county in which said offenses are committed is by said section required to be returned; and all writs and recognizances in said prosecutions shall be returned to that division in which said prosecutions by this act are to be tried."
21 Stat. p. 198. This provision does not affect the authority of the grand jury for the district, sitting at any place at which the court is appointed to be held, to present indictments for offenses committed any where within the district. It only requires the trial to be had, and writs and recognizances to be returned, in the division in which the offense is committed. The finding of the indictment is no part of the trial. And these indictments were tried at Graham, in conformity with the statute.
their verdict for 40 hours, had announced in open court that they were unable to agree as to these defendants. The further averment that "there existed in law or fact no emergency or hurry for the discharge of said jury, nor was said discharge demanded for the ends of public justice," is an allegation not so much of specific and traversable fact as of inference and opinion, which cannot control the effect of the facts previously alleged. Upon those facts, whether the discharge of the jury was manifestly necessary in order to prevent a defeat of the ends of public justice was a question to be finally decided by the presiding judge in the sound exercise of his discretion. United States v. Perez, 9 Wheat. 579; Simmons v. United States, 142 U. S. 148.
5. As the defendants were indicted and to be tried for a crime punishable with death, those jurors who stated on voir dire that they had "conscientious scruples in regard to the infliction of the death penalty for crime" were rightly permitted to be challenged by the Government for cause. A juror who has conscientious scruples on any subject which prevent him from standing indifferent between the Government and the accused and from trying the case according to the law and the evidence is not an impartial juror. This Court has accordingly held that a person who has a conscientious belief that polygamy is rightful may be challenged for cause on a trial for polygamy. Reynolds v. United States, 98 U. S. 145, 98 U. S. 147, 98 U. S. 157; Miles v. United States, 103 U. S. 304, 103 U. S. 310. And the principle has been applied to the very question now before us by Mr. Justice Story in United States v. Cornell, 2 Mason, 91, 105, and by Mr. Justice Baldwin in United States v. Wilson, Baldw. 78, 83, as well as by the courts of every State in which the question has arisen, and by express statute in many States. Whart. Crim.Pl. (9th Ed.) § 664.
be convicted of felony in this State, or in any other jurisdiction, unless such conviction has been legally set aside, or unless the convict has been legally pardoned for the crime of which he was convicted."
"the common law of England, as now practiced and understood, shall, in its application to juries and to evidence, be followed and practiced by the courts of this Republic, so far as the same may not be inconsistent with this act, or any other law passed by this Congress."
1 Laws of Republic of Texas, (Ed. 1838,) 156. That act was in force at the time of the admission of Texas into the Union, in 1845. The first act of the State of Texas on the incompetency of witnesses by reason of conviction of crime appears to have been the statute of February 15, 1858, c. 151, by which all persons convicted of felony in Texas or elsewhere were made incompetent to testify in criminal actions, notwithstanding a pardon, unless their competency to testify had been specifically restored. General Laws of 7th Legislature of Texas 242; Oldham & W. Dig. 640. That provision was afterwards put in the shape in which it stands in the Code of 1879, above cited.
courts of the United States in trials at common law, and in equity and admiralty."
"in the courts of the United States no witness shall be excluded in any action on account of color, or in any civil action because he is a party to or interested in the issue tried,"
the distinction between "any civil action" in the second clause and "any action" in the first clause shows that the first clause was intended to include criminal actions, or, as they are more commonly called, "criminal cases," while the second clause was in terms restricted to civil actions only. Green v. United States, 9 Wall. 655, 76 U. S. 658. And, were the whole section to be considered by itself, without reference to previous statutes and decision, "trials at common law" in the final clause of the section might also be held to include trials in criminal, as well as in civil, cases.
"The language of this section cannot upon any fair construction be extended beyond civil cases at common law, as contradistinguished from suits in equity. So far as concerns rights of property, it is the only rule that could be adopted by the courts of the United States, and the only one that Congress had the power to establish.
And the section above quoted was merely intended to confer on the courts of the United States the jurisdiction necessary to enable them to administer the laws of the States. But it could not be supposed, without very plain words to show it, that Congress intended to give to the States the power of prescribing the rules of evidence in trials for offenses against the United States. For this construction would, in effect, place the criminal jurisprudence of one sovereignty under the control of another. It is evident that such could not be the design of this act of Congress. . . . The law by which, in the opinion of this Court, the admissibility of testimony in criminal cases must be determined is the law of the State, as it was when the courts of the United States were established by the Judiciary Act of 1789. . . . The courts of the United States have uniformly acted upon this construction of these acts of Congress, and it has thus been sanctioned by a practice of sixty years."
United States v. Reid, 12 How. 361, 53 U. S. 363, 53 U. S. 366.
"the laws of the State in which the court shall be held shall be the rules of decision as to the competency of witnesses in the courts of the United States in trials at common law, in equity, and in admiralty."
12 Stat. p. 588. By a familiar rule, the words "trials at common law" in this statute are to receive the construction which had been judicially given to the same words in the earlier statute relating to the same subject. The Abbotsford, 98 U. S. 440; United States v. Mooney, 116 U. S. 104. In re Louisville Underwriters, 134 U. S. 488. They have received that construction in several of the Circuit Courts. United States v. Hawthorne, 1 Dill. 422; United States v. Brown, 1 Sawy. 531, 538; United States v. Black, 1 Fox, 570, 571. The question has not come before this Court, probably because there never was a division of opinion upon it in a Circuit Court, which was the only way, until very recently, in which it could have been brought up.
"that in the courts of the United States there shall be no exclusion of any witness on account of color, nor in civil actions because he is a party to or interested in the issue tried"
appropriation act for the year ending June 30, 1865, as a proviso to a section making an appropriation for bringing counterfeiters to trial and punishment. Act July 2, 1864, c. 210, § 3; 13 Stat. p. 351. That proviso, as already suggested, included criminal cases in the first clause, as distinguished from the second. But it had no tendency to bring criminal cases within the general provision of the act of 1862.
The proviso as to actions by or against executors, administrators, or guardians was added, by way of amendment to section 3 of the appropriation act above mentioned, by the act of March 3, 1965, c. 113. 13 Stat. p. 533. This proviso had evidently no relation to criminal cases.
The combination and transposition of the provisions of 1862, 1864, and 1865 in a single section of the Revised Statutes, putting the two provisos of the later statutes first, and the general rule of the earlier statute last, but hardly changing the words of either, except so far as necessary to connect them together, cannot be held to have altered the scope and purpose of these enactments, or of any of them. It is not to be inferred that Congress, in revising and consolidating the statutes, intended to change their effect unless an intention to do so is clearly expressed. Potter v. National Bank, 102 U. S. 163; McDonald v. Hovey, 110 U. S. 619; United States v. Ryder, 110 U. S. 729, 110 U. S. 740.
It may be added that Congress has enacted that any person convicted of perjury, or subornation of perjury under the laws of the United States shall be incapable of giving testimony in any court of the United States until the judgment is reversed, Rev.Stat. §§ 5392, 5393, and has made specific provisions as to the competency of witnesses in criminal cases by permitting a defendant in any criminal case to testify on the trial at his own request, and by making the lawful husband or wife of the accused a competent witness in any prosecution for bigamy, polygamy, or unlawful cohabitation. Act March 16, 1878, c. 37; 20 Stat. p. 30; Act March 3, 1887, c. 397; 24 Stat. p. 635.
court is held shall be the rules of decision as to the competency of witnesses in the courts of the United States in trials at common law and in equity and admiralty,"
has no application to criminal trials, and therefore the competency of witnesses in criminal trials in the courts of the United States held within the State of Texas is not governed by a statute of the State which was first enacted in 1858, but, except so far as Congress has made specific provisions upon the subject, is governed by the common law, which, as has been seen, was the law of Texas before the passage of that statute, and at the time of the admission of Texas into the Union as a State.
At common law, and on general principles of jurisprudence, when not controlled by express statute giving effect within the State which enacts it to a conviction and sentence, in another State, such conviction and sentence can have no effect, by way of penalty or of personal disability or disqualification, beyond the limits of the State in which the judgment is rendered. Wisconsin v. Pelican Ins. Co., 127 U. S. 265; Commonwealth v. Green, 17 Mass. 515; Sims v. Sims, 75 N. Y. 466; National Trust Co. v. Gleason, 77 N. Y. 400; Story, Confl.Laws, § 92; 1 Greenl. Ev. § 376. It follows that the conviction of Martin in North Carolina did not make him incompetent to testify on the trial of this case.
The competency of Spear to testify is equally clear. He was convicted and sentenced in Texas, and the full pardon of the Governor of the State, although granted after he had served out his term of imprisonment, thenceforth took away all disqualifications as a witness and restored his competency to testify to any facts within his knowledge, even if they came to his knowledge before his disqualification had been removed by the pardon. Boyd v. United States, 142 U. S. 450; United States v. Jones, (before Mr. Justice Thompson) 2 Wheeler, Crim.Cas. 451, 461; Hunnicutt v. State, 18 Tex.App. 498; Thornton v. State, 20 Tex. App. 519.
the omission to deliver to the defendants lists of the witnesses to be called against them.
"When any person is indicted of treason, a copy of the indictment, and a list of the jury, and of the witnesses to be produced on the trial for proving the indictment, stating the place of abode of each juror and witness, shall be delivered to him at least three entire days before he is tried for the same. When any person is indicted of any other capital offense, such copy of the indictment and list of the jurors and witnesses shall be delivered to him at least two entire days before the trial."
This section reenacts a provision of the first crimes act of the United States, except that, under that act, the defendant, if indicted for any capital offense other than treason, was not entitled to a list of the witnesses. Act April 30, 1790, c. 9, § 29, 1 Stat. p. 118.
The words of the existing statute are too plain to be misunderstood. The defendant, if indicted for treason, is to have delivered to him, three days before the trial, "a copy of the indictment, and a list of the jury, and of the witnesses to be produced on the trial for proving the indictment;" and, if indicted for any other capital offense, is to have "such copy of the indictment and list of the jurors and witnesses" two days before the trial. The list of witnesses required to be delivered to the defendant is not a list of the witnesses on whose testimony the indictment has been found, or whose names are indorsed on the indictment, but it is a list of the "witnesses to be produced on the trial for proving the indictment." The provision is not directory only, but mandatory to the Government, and its purpose is to inform the defendant of the testimony which he will have to meet, and to enable him to prepare his defense. Being enacted for his benefit, he may doubtless waive it if he pleases, but he has a right to insist upon it, and if he seasonably does so, the trial cannot lawfully proceed until the requirement has been complied with. United States v. Stewart, 2 Dall. 343; United States v. Curtis, 4 Mason, 232; United States v. Dow, Taney 34; Regina v. Frost, 9 Car. & P. 129; S.C., 2 Moody 140; Lord v. State, 18 N. H.
173; People v. Hall, 48 Mich. 482, 487; Keener v. State, 18 Ga. 194, 218.
"when any person is indicted for high treason, or misprision of treason, a list of the witnesses that shall be produced on the trial for proving the said indictment and of the jury, mentioning the names, profession, and place of abode of the said witnesses and jurors, be also given, at the same time that the copy of the indictment is delivered to the party indicted; and that copies of all indictments for the offenses aforesaid, with such lists, shall be delivered to the party indicted ten days before the trial, and in presence of two or more credible witnesses."
Upon a case brought before all the judges of England in 1840 in which a copy of the indictment and list of the jurors had been delivered to the defendant 15 days and a list of the witnesses to be produced on the trial had been delivered to him 10 days before the trial, the defendant, after he had been put upon his trial, and the jury had been sworn and charged with him upon the indictment, objected, upon the first witness being called, and before he was sworn, that neither that witness nor any other could be examined, because the list of witnesses had not been delivered to him at the same time as the indictment and the list of jurors, as the statute of Anne required. It was argued for the Crown that the list of witnesses was seasonably delivered, and that, if not, the objection should have been taken earlier. It was held by a majority of the judges that the delivery of the list of witnesses was not a good delivery in point of law, but that the objection to its delivery was not taken in due time, and the judges agreed that, if the objection had been made in due time, the effect of it would have been a postponement of the trial in order to give time for a proper delivery of the list. In the course of the argument, Chief Justice Tindal said: "If no list had been delivered, the Crown could not have called a single witness." Regina v. Frost, 9 Car. & P. 129, 175, 187, S.C., 2 Moody, 140, 158, 170.
"every person indicted for any offense the punishment of which may be death or confinement to hard labor for life shall be entitled to a copy of the indictment before he is arraigned thereon, a list of the witnesses to be used on the trial, and of the jurors returned to serve on the same, with the name and place of abode of each, to be delivered to him forty-eight hours before the trial,"
"undoubtedly it is competent to the respondent, when a witness is called in such a case to be examined against him, to except that such witness is not named in the list furnished to him, for the purpose of excluding the testimony of that witness."
N.H.Rev.Stat. c. 225, § 3; Lord v. State, 18 N. H. 173, 175, 176.
not having delivered to the defendants the lists required by the statute.
There is no pretense that there was any waiver on their part of their right to such a list. On the contrary, they took the objection when the case was called for trial, and before the impaneling of the jury; and they renewed the objection as soon as witnesses whose names were not indorsed on either of the indictments were called and sworn to testify in support of the indictments, and before any of them had given any testimony in the case; and, on each occasion, they duly took an exception to the overruling of the objection.
"The question is whether the crime is one for which the statutes authorize the court to award an infamous punishment, not whether the punishment ultimately awarded is an infamous one. When the accused is in danger of being subjected to an infamous punishment if convicted, he has the right to insist that he shall not be put upon his trial, except on the accusation of a grand jury."
Ex parte Wilson, 114 U. S. 417, 114 U. S. 426.
in the prosecution of the enterprise is considered the act of all, and is evidence against all. United States v. Gooding, 12 Wheat. 460, 25 U. S. 469. But only those acts and declarations are admissible under this rule which are done and made while the conspiracy is pending, and in furtherance of its object. After the conspiracy has come to an end, whether by success or by failure, the admissions of one conspirator, by way of narrative of past facts, are not admissible in evidence against the others. 1 Greenl. Ev. § 111; 3 Greenl. Ev. § 94; State v. Dean, 13 Ired. 63; Patton v. State, 6 Ohio St. 467; State v. Thibeau, 30 Vt. 100: State v. Larkin, 49 N.H. 39; Heine v. Commonwealth, 91 Penn.St. 145; Davis v. State, 9 Tex.App. 363.
Tested by this rule, it is quite clear that the defendants on trial could not be affected by the admissions made by others of the alleged conspirators after the conspiracy had ended by the attack on the prisoners, the killing of two of them, and the dispersion of the mob. There is no evidence in the record tending to show that the conspiracy continued after that time. Even if, as suggested by the counsel for the United States, the conspiracy included an attempt to manufacture evidence to shield Logan, Johnson's subsequent declarations that Logan acted with the mob at the fight at Dry creek were not in execution or furtherance of the conspiracy, but were mere narratives of a past fact. And the statements to the same effect, made by Charles Marlow to his companions while returning to the Denson farm after the fight was over were incompetent in any view of the case.
Upon the other exceptions taken by the defendants to rulings and instructions at the trial we give no opinion, because they involve no question of public interest, and may not again arise in the same form.
"Sec. 5508. If two or more persons conspire to injure, oppress, threaten, or intimidate any citizen in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States, or because of his having so exercised the same; or if two or more persons go in disguise on the highway, or on the premises of another, with intent to prevent or hinder his free exercise or enjoyment of any right or privilege so secured, they shall be fined not more than five thousand dollars, and imprisoned not more than ten years, and shall, moreover, be thereafter ineligible to any office or place of honor, profit, or trust, created by the constitution or laws of the United States."
"Sec. 5509. If in the act of violating any provision in either of the two preceding sections any other felony or misdemeanor be committed, the offender shall be punished for the same with such punishment as is attached to such felony or misdemeanor by the laws of the state in which the offense is committed."
By the laws of Texas, killing with malice aforethought, either express or implied, is murder; murder committed with express malice is murder in the first degree; the punishment of murder in the first degree is death, or imprisonment in the penitentiary for life; and the degree of murder, as well as the punishment, is to be found by the jury. Pen. Code Tex. 1879, arts. 605-609.

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