Source: https://www.law.cornell.edu/supremecourt/text/123/131
Timestamp: 2019-04-18 18:45:53+00:00

Document:
THE ANARCHISTS' CASE.1Ex parte SPIES and others.
When, as in this case, application is made to us on the suggestion of one of our number, to whom a similar application had been previously addressed, for the allowance of a writ of error to the highest court of a state, under section 709, Rev. St., it is our duty to ascertain, not only whether any question reviewable here was made and decided in the proper court below, but whether it is of a character to justify us in bringing the judgment here for re-examination. In our opinion the writ ought not to be allowed by the court if it appears from the face of the record that the decision of the federal question which is complained of was so plainly right as not to require argument, and especially if it is in accordance with our own well-considered judgments in similar cases. That is in effect what was done in Twitchell v. Com., 7 Wall. 321, where the writ was refused, because the questions presented by the record were 'no longer subjects of discussion here,' although, if they had been in the opinion of the court 'open,' it would have been allowed. When, under section 5 of our rule 6, a motion to affirm is united with a motion to dismiss for want of jurisdiction, the practice has been to grant the motion to affirm when 'the question on which our jurisdiction depends was so manifestly decided right that the case ought not to be held for further argument.' Arrowsmith v. Harmoning, 118 U. S. 194, 195, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1023; Church v. Kelsey, 121 U. S. 282, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 897. The propriety of adopting a similar rule upon motions in open court for the allowance of a writ of error is apparent, for certainly we would not be justified as a court in sending out a writ to bring up for review a judgment of the highest court of a state, when it is apparent on the face of the record that our duty would be to grant a motion to affirm as soon as it was made in proper form.
In the present case we have had the benefit of argument in support of the application, and, while counsel have not deemed it their duty to go fully into the merits of the federal questions they suggest, they have shown us distinctly what the decisions were of which they complain, and how the questions arose. In this way we are able to determine, as a court in session, whether the errors alleged are such as to justify us in bringing the case here for review.
That the first 10 articles of amendment were not intended to limit the powers of the state governments in respect to their own people, but to operate on the national government alone, was decided more than a half century ago, and that decision has been steadily adhered to since. Barron v. Baltimore, 7 Pet. 243, 247; Livingston v. Moore, Id. 469, 552; Fox v. Ohio, 5 How. 410, 434; Smith v. Maryland, 18 How. 71, 76; Withers v. Buckley, 20 How. 84, 91; Pervear v. Com., 5 Wall. 475, 479; Twitchell v. Com., 7 Wall. 321, 325; Justices v. Murray, 9 Wall. 274, 278; Edwards v. Elliott, 21 Wall. 532, 557; Walker v. Sauvinet, 92 U. S. 90; U. S. v. Cruikshank, Id. 542, 552; Pearson v. Yewdall, 95 U. S. 294, 296; Davidson v. New Orleans, 96 U. S. 97, 101; Kelly v. Pittsburgh, 104 U. S. 79; Presser v. Illinois, 116 U. S. 252, 265, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 580.
It was contended, however, in argument, that, 'though originally the first ten amendments were adopted as limitations on federal power, yet, in so far as they secure and recognize fundamental rightscommon-law rightsof the man, they make them privileges and immunities of the man as a citizen of the United States, and cannot now be abridged by a state under the fourteenth amendment. In other words, while the ten amendments as limitations on power only apply to the federal government, and not to the states, yet in so far as they declare or recognize rights of persons, these rights are theirs, as citizens of the United States, and the fourteenth amendment as to such rights limits state power, as the ten amendments had limited federal power.' It is also contended that the provision of the fourteenth amendment, which declares that no state shall deprive 'any person of life, liberty, or property without due process of law,' implies that every person charged with crime in a state shall be entitled to a trial by an impartial jury, and shall not be compelled to testify against himself. The objections are, in brief, (1) that a statute of the state as construed by the court deprived the petitioners of a trial by an impartial jury; and (2) that Spies was compelled to give evidence against himself. Before considering whether the constitution of the United States has the effect which is claimed, it is proper to inquire whether the federal questions relied on in fact do arise on the face of this record.
The statute to which objection is made was approved March 12, 1874, and has been in force since July 1st of that year. Hurd, Rev. St. Ill. 1885, p. 752, c. 78, § 14. It is as follows: 'It shall be sufficient cause of challenge of a petit juror that he lacks any one of the qualifications mentioned in section 2 of this act; or, if he is not one of the regular panel, that he has served as a juror on the trial of a cause in any court of record in the county within one year previous to the time of his being offered as a juror; or that he is a party to a suit pending for trial in that court at that term. It shall be the duty of the court to discharge from the panel all jurors who do not possess the qualifications provided in this act, as soon as the fact is discovered: provided, if a person has served on a jury in a court of record within one year, he shall be exempt from again serving during such year, unless he waives such exemption: provided, further, that it shall not be a cause of challenge that a juror has read in the newspapers an account of the commission of the crime with which the prisoner is charged, if such juror shall state on oath that he believes he can render an impartial verdict according to the law and the evidence: and provided, further, that, in the trial of any criminal cause, the fact that a person called as a juror has formed an opinion or impression, based upon rumor or upon newspaper statements, (about the truth of which he has expressed no opinion,) shall not disqualify him to serve as a juror in such case, if he shall upon oath state that he believes he can fairly and impartially render a verdict therein in accordance with the law and the evidence, and the court shall be satisfied of the truth of such statement.' The complaint is that the trial court, acting under this statute, and in accordance with its requirements, compelled the petitioners, against their will, to submit to a trial by a jury that was not impartial, and thus deprived them of one of the fundamental rights which they had as citizens of the United States under the national constitution, and, if the sentence of the court is carried into execution, they will be deprived of their lives without due process of law.
In Hopt v. Utah, 120 U. S. 430, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 614, it was decided by this court that when ' a challenge by a defendant in a criminal action to a juror for bias, actual or implied, is disallowed, and the juror is thereupon peremptorily challenged by the defendant and excused, and an impartial and competent juror is obtained in his place, no injury is done the defendant, if, until the jury is completed, he has other peremptory challenges which he can use.' And so in Hayes v. Missouri, 120 U. S. 71, 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 350, it was said: 'The right to challenge is the right to reject, not to select, a juror. If from those who remain an impartial jury is obtained, the constitutional right of the accused is maintained.' Of the correctness of these rulings we entertain no doubt.
We are therefore confined in this case to the rulings on the challenges to the jurors who actually sat at the trial. Of these there were but two: Theodore Denker, the third juror who was sworn, and H. T. Sanford, the last, who was called and sworn after all the peremptory challenges of the defendants had been exhausted.
At the trial, the court construed the statute to mean that 'although a person called as a juryman may have formed an opinion based upon rumor or upon newspaper statements, but has expressed no opinion as to the truth of the newspaper statement, he is still qualified as a juror if he states that he can fairly and impartially render a verdict thereon in accordance with the law and the evidence, and the court shall be satisfied of the truth of such statement. It is not a test question whether the juror will have the opinion which he has formed from newspapers changed by the evidence, but whether his verdict will be based only upon the account which may here be given by witnesses under oath.' Interpreted in this way, the statute is not materially different from that of the territory of Utah, which we had under consideration in Hopt v. Utah, ubi supra, and to which we then gave effect. As that was a territorial statute, passed by a territorial legislature for the government of a territory over which the United States had exclusive jurisdiction, it came directly within the operation of article 6 of the amendments, which guarantied to Hopt a trial by an impartial jury. Webster v. Reid, 11 How. 437, 459. No one at that time suggested a doubt of the constitutionality of the statute, and it was regarded, both in the territorial courts and here, as furnishing the proper rule to be observed by a territorial court in impaneling an impartial jury in a criminal case.
A similar statute was enacted in New York, May 3, 1872, (Acts 1872, c. 475, 9 N. Y. St. at Large, 2d Ed. 373;) in Michigan, April 18, 1873, (Acts 1873, p. 162, art. 117; How. St. § 9564;) in Nebraska, (Comp. St. Neb. 1885, p. 838; Crim. Code, § 468; and in Ohio, (Rev. St. Ohio 1880, § 7278.) The constitutionality of the statute of New York was sustained by the court of appeals of that state in Stokes v. People, 53 N. Y. 164, 172, (decided June 10, 1873;) and that of Ohio, in Cooper v. State, 16 Ohio St. 328. So far as we have been able to discover, no doubt has ever been entertained in Michigan or Nebraska of the constitutionality of the statutes of those states respecttively, but they have always been treated by their supreme courts as valid, both under the constitution of the United States, and under that of the state. Stephens v. People, 38 Mich. 739, 741; Ulrich v. People, 39 Mich. 245; Murphy v. State, 15 Neb. 383, 19 N. W. Rep. 489. Indeed, the rule of the statute of Illinois, as it was construed by the trial court, is not materially different from that which has been adopted by the courts in many of the states without legislative action. Com. v. Webster, 5 Cush. 295; Holt v. People, 13 Mich. 224; State v. Fox, 25 N J. Law, 566; Osiander v. Com., 3 Leigh, 780; State v. Ellington, 7 Ired. 61; Smith v. Eames, 3 Scam. 81. See, also, an elaborate note to this last case in 36 Amer. Dec. 521, where a very large number of authorities on the subject are cited.
Without pursuing this subject further, it is sufficient to say that we agree entirely with the supreme court of Illinois in its opinion in this case that the statute on its face, as construed by the trial court, is not repugnant to section 9 of article 2 of the constitution of that state, which guaranties to the accused party in every criminal prosecution 'a speedy trial by an impartial jury of the county or district in which the offense is alleged to have been committed.' As this is substantially the provision of the constitution of the United States on which the petitioners now rely, it follows that, even if their position as to the operation and effect of that constitution is correct, the statute is not open to the objection which is made against it.
We proceed, then, to a consideration of the grounds of challenge to the jurors Denker and Sanford, to see if, in the actual administration of the rule of the statute by the court, the rights of the defendants under the constitution of the United States were in any way impaired or violated.
At the close of this examination neither party challenged the juror peremptorily, and he was accepted and sworn. It is not denied that when this occurred the defendants were still entitled to 142 peremptory challenges, or about that number.
At this stage of the examination the court remarked, in reply to some suggestion of counsel, as follows: 'The Court. The defendants having challenged for cause, which is overruled, can, of course, stand where they are without saying anything more; but the effect of that, in my judgment, is that they accept the juror because they can't help themselves. They have got no peremptory challenge; the challenge for cause is overruled, and, necessarily, the question now is for the state to say whether they will accept this juror or not. The common law is that all jurors not challenged, or to whom the challenge is not sustained, are the jurors to try the case. If they are not challenged for a cause which is sustained, and if they are not challenged peremptorily, then they are necessarily the jury to try the case. Now, in this instance, the defendants have no more peremptory challenges, and the challenge which they have made for cause is overruled; therefore, so far as the defendants are concerned, he is a juror to try the case.' This was accepted by both parties as a true statement of the then condition of the case; and after some further examination of the juror, which elicited nothing of importance in connection with the present inquiry, no peremptory challenge having been interposed by the state, Sanford was sworn as a juror, and the panel was then complete.
This, so far as we have been advised, presents all there is in the record which this court can consider touching the challenges of these two jurors by the defendants for cause.
In Reynolds v. U. S., 98 U. S. 145, 156, we said 'that upon the trial of the issue of fact raised by' a challenge to a juror, in a criminal case, on the ground that he had formed and expressed an opinion as to the issues to be tried, 'the court will practically be called upon to determine whether the nature and strength of the opinion formed are such as in law necessarily to raise the presumption of partiality. The question thus presented is one of mixed law and fact, and to be tried, as far as the facts are concerned, like any other issue of that character, upon the evidence. The finding of the trial court upon that issue ought not to be set aside by a reviewing court, unless the error is manifest. * * * It must be made clearly to appear that, upon the evidence, the court ought to have found the juror had formed such an opinion that he could not in law be deemed impartial. The case must be one in which it is manifest the law left nothing to the 'conscience or discretion' of the court.' If such is the degree of strictness which is required in the ordinary cases of writs of error from one court to another in the same general jurisdiction, it certainly ought not to be relaxed in a case where, as in this, the ground relied on for the reversal by this court of a judgment of the highest court of the state is that the error complained of is so gross as to amount in law to a denial by the state of a trial by an impartial jury to one who is accused of crime. We are unhesitatingly of opinion that no such case is disclosed by this record.
We come now to consider the objection that the defendant Spies was compelled by the court to be a witness against himself. He voluntarily offered himself as a witness in his own behalf, and by so doing he became bound to submit to a proper cross-examination under the law and practice in the jurisdiction where he was being tried. The complaint is that he was required on cross-examination to state whether he had received a certain letter, which was shown, purporting to have been written by Johann Most, and addressed to him, and, upon his saying that he had, the court allowed the letter to be read in evidence against him. This, it is claimed, was not proper cross-examination. It is not contended that the subject to which the cross-examination related was not pertinent to the issue to be tried; and whether a cross-examination must be confined to matters pertinent to the testimony in chief, or may be extended to the matters in issue, is certainly a question of state law, as administered in the courts of the state, and not of federal law.
Even if the court was wrong in saying that it did not appear that the Most letter was one of the papers illegally seized, it still remains uncontradicted that objection was not made in the trial court to its admission on that account. To give us jurisdiction under section 709, Rev. St., because of the denial by a state court of any title, right, privilege, or immunity claimed under the constitution, or any treaty or statute of the United States, it must appear on the record that such title, right, privilege, or immunity was 'specially set up or claimed' at the proper time, and in the proper way. To be reviewable here, the decision must be against the right so set up or claimed. As the supreme court of the state was reviewing the decision of the trial court, it must appear that the claim was made in that court, because the supreme court was only authorized to review the judgment for errors committed there, and we can do no more. This is not, as seems to be supposed by one of the counsel for the petitioners, a question of the waiver of a right under the constitution, laws, or treaties of the United States, but a question of claim. If the right was not set up or claimed in the proper court below, the judgment of the highest court of the state in the action is conclusive, so far as the right of review here in concerned. The question whether the letter, if obtained in the manner alleged, would have been competent evidence, is not before us, and therefore no foundation is laid under this objection for the exercise of our jurisdiction.
As to the suggestion by counsel for the petitioners Spies and FieldenSpies having been born in Germany, and Fielden in Great Britainthat they have been denied by the decision of the court below rights guarantied to them by treaties between the United States and their respective countries, it is sufficient to say that no such questions were made and decided in either of the courts below, and they cannot be raised in this court for the first time. Besides, we have not been referred to any treaty, neither are we aware of any, under which such a question could be raised.
The objection that the defendants were not actually present in the supreme court of the state at the time sentence was pronounced, cannot be made on the record as it now stands, because on its face it shows that they were present. If this is not in accordance with the fact, the record must be corrected below, not here. It will be time enough to consider whether the objection presents a federal question when the correction has been made.
Being of opinion, therefore, that the federal questions presented by the counsel for the petitioners, and which they say they desire to argue, are not involved in the determination of the case as it appears on the face of the record, we deny the writ. Petition for writ of error is dismissed.
See 12 N. E. Rep. 865.
WILLIAM A. ENSIGN, Piff. in Err., v. COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA. NO 123. CHARLES A. ENSIGN, Piff. in Err., v. COMMONWEALTH OF PENNSYLVANIA. NO 124.
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JAMES H. HOLT, Plff. in Err., v. UNITED STATES.

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