Opinion ID: 1487677
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: congress has by law directed the place of trial of treasons committed in a foreign country.

Text: Objection to the jurisdiction of the court below was made on the asserted ground that Congress has not by law directed the place of trial of crimes committed within the territorial jurisdiction of a foreign government. Article III, § 2, cl. 3 of the Constitution provides that all criminal trials, except in cases of impeachment, shall be held in the State where the said Crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the Trial shall be at such Place or Places as the Congress may by Law have directed. [3] The first Congress exercised the power of directing by law the place of trial of crimes not committed within any State. In § 8 of the Act of April 30, 1790, 1 Stat. 114, this language appeared:    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. That provision in itself might have seemed to be clear enough and all-inclusive. But it was a clause tacked on to a section defining certain offenses committed upon the high seas, or in any river, haven, basin or bay, out of the jurisdiction of any particular State, for which offenses the offender was to be adjudged to be a pirate and felon, and sentenced to death. It was undoubtedly this context of the venue clause above quoted which led Chief Justice Marshall to remark, in Ex parte Bollman, 1807, 4 Cranch 74, 135, 2 L.Ed. 554, that that provision is understood to apply only to offences committed on the high seas, or in any river, haven, basin or bay, not within the jurisdiction of any particular state. In that case, Bollman, whose release on habeas corpus was sought, had been arrested in New Orleans by General Wilkinson and brought to Washington charged with treason. New Orleans was then within the Territory of Orleans, and there was in existence a district court of said territory, established by 2 Stat. 283, 285, with jurisdiction to try the offense. The Court held that Bollman could not be tried in the District of Columbia, because the venue clause of the Act of April 30, 1790, was meant to be applicable to those cases where there is no court which has particular cognizance of the crime, and therefore, the place in which the criminal shall be apprehended, or, if he be apprehended where no court has exclusive jurisdiction, that to which he shall be first brought, is substituted for the place in which the offense was committed. The above venue provision of the Act of April 30, 1790, was lifted from its special context, and after some changes in phraseology was put by itself in a separate section of the Revised Statutes of 1874. Rev. Stat. § 730 provided: The trial of all offenses committed upon the high seas or elsewhere, out of the jurisdiction of any particular State or district, shall be in the district where the offender is found, or into which he is first brought. This language was carried forward into § 41 of the Judicial Code, 36 Stat. 1100, and appeared as 28 U.S.C. § 102 (1946 ed.). It has recently been transferred to the Criminal Code, 18 U.S.C.A. § 3238, with a minor change not now pertinent. Whatever might have been the correct interpretation of the original venue clause of the Act of April 30, 1790, the subsequent version, as it has remained on the books without substantial change since Rev.Stat. § 730, ought, it seems to us, to be given its broad literal meaning. Congress having made treason by an American citizen a criminal offense wherever committed, whether within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States, or on the high seas or within a foreign country  as we have seen above  it would indeed be a glaring casus omissus if Congress had failed to designate the district in which an offender who committed his treasonable acts abroad should be tried. There is no such gap in the law. We cannot accept appellant's contention that in the phrase all offenses committed upon the high seas or elsewhere, out of the jurisdiction of any particular State or district, the words or elsewhere should be construed with the preceding words high seas, under the doctrine of ejusdem generis, so as not to include places on land within the jurisdiction either of the United States or of foreign powers. Such suggested interpretation is contrary to the holdings in Jones v. United States, 1890, 137 U.S. 202, 11 S.Ct. 80, 34 L.Ed. 691, and United States v. Bowman, 1922, 260 U.S. 94, 43 S.Ct. 39, 67 L.Ed. 149. See Blackmer v. United States, 1932, 284 U.S. 421, 436, 52 S.Ct. 252, 76 L.Ed. 375. In the Jones case, a murder had been committed on one of the guano islands in the Caribbean Sea, a place over which the United States had asserted jurisdiction pursuant to the Act of August 18, 1856, 11 Stat. 119, Rev.Stat. §§ 5570-5578, 48 U.S.C.A. §§ 1411-1419. The offender was first brought into the District of Maryland. It was held that the United States District Court there had jurisdiction under Rev.Stat. § 730 to try the offender. 137 U.S. 211, 212, 11 S.Ct. 83, 34 L.Ed. 691. In United States v. Bowman, supra, the Court upheld the jurisdiction of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, under § 41 of the Judicial Code, to try an accused under an indictment charging conspiracy in Brazil to defraud the United States. The Court said, 260 U.S. at page 102, 43 S.Ct. at page 42, 67 L.Ed. 149: The three defendants who were found in New York were citizens of the United States and were certainly subject to such laws as it might pass to protect itself and its property. Clearly it is no offense to the dignity or right of sovereignty of Brazil to hold them for this crime against the government to which they owe allegiance. In view of these authorities, which we regard as controlling, it is unnecessary to discuss the other citations and arguments of appellant on this particular point.