Case Name: William Porter Junior, Judge Advocate, versus Timothy Wainwright
Court: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court
Jurisdiction: Massachusetts
Decision Date: 1834-09
Citations: 15 Pick. 439
Docket Number: 
Parties: William Porter Junior, Judge Advocate, versus Timothy Wainwright.
Judges: 
Reporter: Massachusetts Reports
Volume: 32
Pages: 439–440

Head Matter:
William Porter Junior, Judge Advocate, versus Timothy Wainwright.
The duties of a commanding officer of a division in the militia, and those of a brigadier-general, cannot be performed by the same person ; so that where a brigadier-general, as commanding officer of the division, detailed one officer, and as brigadier-general, detailed another officer, to sit on a court martial, it was held, that the court martial was illegally constituted and that its.proceedings were void.
This was an action of debt to recover a fine imposed upon the defendant by a court martial. It appeared, that during the temporary absence of the major-general of the fourth division of the militia, the command devolved upon Brigadier-General Warner, and that Warner, as commanding officer of the division, detailed a brigadier-general, and as brigadier-general, detailed a lieutenant-colonel, to serve on the court martial; and it was objected on the part of the defendant, that when the command of the division devolved upon Warner, he vacated, for the time, his office of brigadier-general, the duties of the two offices being incompatible ; that the lieutenant-colonel was therefore improperly detailed, and the court martial irregularly constituted ; and that consequently the sentence against the defendant was void and the action could not be maintained.

Opinion:
The Court were of this opinion and nonsuited the plaintiff. See St. 1809, c. 108, § 13, 31 ; [Revised Stat. c. 12, § 117;] St. 1821, c. 92, § 9 ; [Revised Stat. c. 12, § 101.]
Porter, pro se.
Bishop and Sumner, for the defendant.