Opinion ID: 1412175
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Distinction between Venue and Jurisdiction

Text: The arguments of the parties and the law proffered in support of their respective positions refer interchangeably to venue or jurisdiction. Although at times related, these terms are hardly synonymous. In the context of a criminal case, jurisdiction involves the inherent power of a the court to decide a criminal case, whereas venue relates to the particular county or city in which a court with jurisdiction may hear and determine a case. Syl. Pt. 7, Lester v. Rose, 147 W.Va. 575, 130 S.E.2d 80 (1963), overruled on other grounds by State ex rel. Sutton v. Spillers, 181 W.Va. 376, 382 S.E.2d 570 (1989). Thus, any court authorized by the [state] Constitution, or a statute enacted pursuant thereto, to hear and determine a case involving a criminal act has jurisdiction thereof. Willis v. O'Brien, 151 W.Va. 628, 630-31, 153 S.E.2d 178, 180 (1967). As long recognized by this Court, [u]nder the Constitution and laws of this state, a crime can be prosecuted and punished only in the state and county where the alleged offense was committed. Syl. Pt. 2, State v. McAllister, 65 W.Va. 97, 63 S.E. 758 (1909). See also State ex rel. Haught v. Donnahoe, 174 W.Va. 27, 32, 321 S.E.2d 677, 682 (1984) (It is fundamental that both federal and state power is limited to its constitutional framework. The organic law embodied within each state constitution runs with the territorial jurisdiction of the state.); Hotzel v. Simmons, 258 Wis. 234, 45 N.W.2d 683 (1951) (without jurisdiction, criminal proceedings are a nullity). Appellant's basic contention is that West Virginia has no authority or power to prosecute or punish the offenses of robbery and sexual assault in this case because all of the elements of the offenses occurred, if at all, in the state of Ohio. This claim raises a territorial challenge to the jurisdiction of any court in West Virginia hearing and deciding the case rather than a venue-based objection regarding which West Virginia court in what particular locality within the state should handle the matter. Even if jurisdiction was not artfully defined as an issue on appeal, [l]ack of jurisdiction may be raised for the first time in this court, when it appears on the face of the bill and proceedings, and it may be taken notice of by this court on its own motion. Syl. Pt. 3, Charleston Apartments Corp. v. Appalachian Elec. Power Co., 118 W.Va. 694, 192 S.E. 294 (1937). See also State v. McLane, 128 W.Va. 774, 776, 38 S.E.2d 343, 344 (1946) (This Court may take congnizance of lack of jurisdiction when the question fairly arises on the record.). As revealed in later discussion, issues of jurisdiction appear readily from the record. To support his claim that any trial against him for these offenses may only be had in Ohio, Appellant points to Rule 18 of the West Virginia Rules of Criminal Procedure [24] and cases which turn on or reference Article III, section 14 of the West Virginia Constitution. This portion of our state constitution in relevant part states: Trials of crimes, and misdemeanors, unless herein otherwise provided, shall be by a jury of twelve men, public, without unreasonable delay, and in the county where the alleged offence was committed, unless upon petition of the accused, and for good cause shown, it is removed to some other county. Id. The jurisdictional as well as venue implications of this constitutional provision were recognized early in the jurisprudence of this state in the case of Ex parte McNeely, 36 W.Va. 84, 14 S.E. 436 (1892). Under the facts of McNeely, a man from Logan County, [25] West Virginia was murdered in the river that forms the Kentucky/West Virginia border, with the shot being fired in Kentucky and the man actually dying in West Virginia where charges were brought. The murder conviction was appealed on the claim that the statute [26] upon which the conviction was based violated Article III, section 14 of the West Virginia Constitution. Speaking to the meaning of Article III, section 14, this Court in McNeely observed: It may be said with some plausibility that the constitutional provision applies only where both blow and death occur within the State, and only selects what county shall hold the trial; and that it does not apply where part of the offense is outside the State. But I regard it a question of jurisdiction arising under the constitution; and that nowhere in the State can trial be had except in that county where the offence is committed, and if not enough of the act occurred in the county of death to enable us to say that the offence was committed there, then it has no jurisdiction, nor has any county of the State; for I construe the clause as meant to be co-extensive with all criminal acts justiciable under the power of the State. 36 W.Va. at 94, 14 S.E. at 439. Although expressing reservation with the statute's departure from common law principles fixing the sole location of trials in murder cases at the place where the fatal wound was inflicted, [27] the McNeely court upheld the constitutionality of the murder statute. In reaching the conclusion in McNeely, this Court recognized and deferred to the Legislature's authority to define the elements of a crime and then found that Article III, section 14 of the state constitution does not serve as a bar to this state enforcing such laws through its court system, even when some of the elements constituting the crime were committed in another state, as long as some significant element of the offense was committed within West Virginia. Cf. State v. Lowe, 21 W.Va. 782 (1883) (finding that a statute extending jurisdiction 100 yards beyond the county where any element of crime committed violated West Virginia Constitution Article III, § 14); State v. McAllister, 65 W.Va. 97, 63 S.E. 758 (1909) (setting aside conviction for robbery finding no element of common law robbery offense committed in West Virginia); State v. Dignan, 114 W.Va. 275, 278, 171 S.E. 527, 528 (1933) (observing that [t]he crime itself or some act or element entering into it must actually have taken place in the county where venue is laid and the trial had. It is true that certain crimes[] may take place and be committed in more than one locality, in which case venue may be laid in all or any one of such places.). The question McNeely leaves for us to answer in the case before us is: What constitutes how much of an act which must occur in West Virginia for this state to have territorial jurisdiction, that is, to assert its sovereign authority to hear and decide a criminal charge under the state's penal laws? The lower court addressed this question, although using a somewhat different phraseology. As a preface to denying Appellant's motion for acquittal based on the territorial challenge which was raised at the close of the state's case in chief, the lower court said: So the question is, as a practical matter, where is this case to be tried in a sense of fairness to everybody? The lower court explained its reasoning for denying the motion as follows: [T]here is a certain, I think, logic to taking the initial act, which is grounded in force and threats and intimidation, and then follow that through and, insofar as the evidence most favorable to the State at this point, you have nothing more than acts that build upon that threat and force and intimidation; robbery in the first degree and sexual assault in the second degree. I could see an argument that conceivably could be made, that if you had an act outside the State of West Virginia that was charged, that has absolutely nothing to do with the force and threat or intimidation, that an argument could be made that venue would not be proper on that offense in Ohio County, West Virginia. But  even though we don't have  there's not a lot of good law in West Virginia to guide us, it just  I think fundamental fairness on both sides and common sense would require a finding, that when an offense begins in Ohio County, West Virginia that is related to an act of violence or force, anything that flows from that, no matter where it would be, the venue would be proper in West Virginia  Ohio County, West Virginia. The state maintains that support for the lower court's conclusion is found in the United States Supreme Court case of United States v. Rodriguez-Moreno, 526 U.S. 275, 119 S.Ct. 1239, 143 L.Ed.2d 388 (1999). The question in Rodriguez-Moreno actually turned on the provisions of a federal venue statute [28] and involved whether a district court in New Jersey had authority to convict a person for carrying a firearm while committing an act of violence in New Jersey when the firearm was used only in the state of Maryland. The Supreme Court examined the following language of the federal statute relied upon by the government to bring the charge in the New Jersey court: Whoever, during and in relation to any crime of violence ... for which he may be prosecuted in a court of the United States, uses or carries a firearm, shall, in addition to the punishment provided for such crime of violence ... be sentenced to imprisonment for five years.... Id. at 279, 119 S.Ct. 1239 quoting 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)). The violent predicate offense in Rodriguez-Moreno happened to be kidnapping. The high court found that closer examination of the nature of the predicate offense was essential in order to give meaning to the statutory phase during and in relation to. Looking to the nature of kidnapping, the Supreme Court found that it was a continuing offense which does not end until the victim is free. The Supreme Court reasoned, Congress proscribed both the use of the firearm and the commission of acts that constitute a violent crime. It does not matter that respondent used the .357 magnum revolver, as the Government concedes, only in Maryland because he did so during and in relation to a kidnaping that was begun in Texas and continued in New York, New Jersey, and Maryland. 526 U.S. at 281, 119 S.Ct. 1239. In other words, the Supreme Court found that within the ambit of the federal statute in question the prosecution of the firearm offense could proceed in any location where prosecution for the continuing and violent offense of kidnapping might be brought. Although the lower court concluded otherwise, the same bootstrap technique is clearly not available in the present case to somehow tie the crimes of sexual assault in the second degree and robbery to the kidnapping offense in order to legitimize this state's assertion of jurisdiction. Nevertheless, we find the Supreme Court's examination of the nature of the offense as a continuing series of events somewhat relevant to our analysis and resolution of the jurisdictional issue.