page_title: Criminal law in the Marshall Court
section_title: Piracy and the high seas
hierarchical_section_title: Criminal law in the Marshall Court / Defining federal crimes / Piracy and the high seas
caption_attribution_description: Capture of the Pirate, Blackbeard, 1718 depicting the battle between Blackbeard the Pirate and Lieutenant Maynard in Ocracoke Bay
context_page_description: The Marshall Court heard forty-one criminal law cases, slightly more than one per year. Among such cases are United States v. Simms, United States v. More, Ex parte Bollman, United States v. Hudson, Cohens v. Virginia, United States v. Perez, Worcester v. Georgia, and United States v. Wilson.
  During Marshall's tenure, the Supreme Court had no general appellate jurisdiction in criminal cases. The Court could review criminal convictions from the state courts, but not the lower federal courts, via writs of error. It only did so twice. The Court could hear original habeas petitions, but disclaimed the authority to grant the writ post-conviction unless the sentence had already been completed. Thus, the majority of the Marshall Court's opinions on criminal law were issued in response to questions certified by divided panels of the circuit courts by a certificate of division.
  Most of the Marshall Court's criminal opinions involved defining the elements of federal crimes. Criminal statutes considered by the Court during this period involved assimilative crimes, counterfeiting, embargoes, insurance fraud, piracy, and slave trading.
context_section_description: The piracy cases considered by the Marshall Court arose under two Congressional statutes: the Crimes Act of 1790 and the Act of March 3, 1819. 
  Article One provides that Congress shall have the power "[t]o define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas." Five sections in the Crimes Act "were devoted to the subject," but "[t]he principal provisions with respect to piracy were incorporated in section 8." According to Prof. White, "from 1815 to 1823, piracy cases were among the most numerous and controversial of those decided by the Court."
  Crimes Act of 1790, § 8
  Section 8 of the Crimes Act of 1790 provided: 
  [I]f any person or persons shall commit upon the high seas, or in any river, haven, basin or bay, out of the jurisdiction of any particular state, murder or robbery, or any other offence which if committed within the body of a county, would by thelaws of the United States be punishable with death; or if any captain or mariner of any ship or other vessel, shall piratically and feloniously run away with such ship or vessel, or any goods or merchandise to the value of fifty dollars, or yield up such ship or vessel voluntarily to any pirate; or if any seaman shall lay violent hands upon his commander, thereby to hinder and prevent his fighting in defence of his ship or goods committed to his trust, or shall make a revolt in the ship; every such offender shall be deemed, taken and adjudged to be a pirate and felon, and being thereof convicted, shall suffer death; and the trial of crimes committed on the high seas, or in any place out of the jurisdiction of any particular state, shall be in the district where the offender is apprehended, or into which he may first be brought.
  The first two decisions to interpret § 8 construed it not to apply to the crimes charged. In United States v. Bevans (1818), the Court held that the § 8 of the Act did not extend to a murder committed on a navy vessel within state waters. In United States v. Palmer (1818), the Court held that the § 8 of the Act did not extend to piracy by U.S. citizen defendants, in the employ of a South American government at war with Spain, committed against Spanish ships and citizens. President John Quincy Adams was a harsh critic of the decision in Palmer. He wrote in his diary that the Court had "cast away the jurisdiction which a law of congress had given, that its "reasoning [was] a sample of judicial logic—disingenuous, false, and hollow," and that it gave him "an early disgust for the practice of law, and led me to the unalterable determination never to accept judicial office."
  Following the Act of 1819, in 1820 the Court began to distinguish Palmer. In United States v. Klintock (1820), the Court distinguished Palmer—in a case involving piracy by a U.S. citizen, claiming to act under the authority of the Mexican Republic, committed against a Danish ship and citizens, under the fraudulent claim that the Danes were Spanish (Spain being at war with the Mexican Republic)—on the grounds that the victims in Palmer were not subjects of a nation recognized by the United States. In United States v. Furlong (1820), sometimes referred to as United States v. Pirates, authored by Justice Johnson (a dissenter in Palmer), the Court distinguished Palmer again, primarily on the ground that the pirate vessel had no nationality (it was an American ship prior to being hijacked). United States v. Holmes (1820) distinguished Palmer on the same ground, further holding that the burden was on the defendant to prove that his vessel flew a lawful flag.
  Crimes Act of 1790, § 12
  Section 12 of the Act provided:
  [I]f any seaman or other person shall commit manslaughter upon the high seas, or confederate, or attempt or endeavour to corrupt any commander, master, officer or mariner, to yield up or to run away with any ship or vessel, or with any goods, wares, or merchandise, or to turn pirate, or to go over to or confederate with pirates, or in any wise trade with any pirate knowing him to be such, or shall furnish such pirate with any ammunition, stores or provisions of a
caption: The Marshall Court decided many controversial piracy cases (the capture of Blackbeard depicted).
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