Court Opinion

ID: 9418015
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 20:46:38.983933+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:18:20.275231
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice- Harlan,
dissenting.
The plaintiffs in error were tried by one of the courts of first instance in the Philippine Islands for the crime of murder. The trial was before a single judge, without a jury, and simply upon a written complaint filed by an individual with a justice of the peace. The judge who tried the accused found them not guilty of murder, and guilty only of assault. For the latter offense they were each sentenced to six months’ imprisonment. Upon appeal by the accused to the Supreme Court of the Islands, the judgment of the trial court was reversed, and two of the accused were condemned to the penalty, each one, of fourteen years, eight months and one day of reclusión temporal, the other one to the penalty of eight years'and one day of prisión mayor, and all three to the indemnification of five hundred Philippine pesos to the heirs of the deceased.
I did not so state in a separate opinion in Kepner v. United States, 195 U. S. 100, but my concurrence in the judgment in that case was upon the ground that from the moment of the complete acquisition o£ the Philippine Islands by the United Slates, and without any act of Congress, or a proclamation of the President upon the subject, the people of those Islands became entitled, of right, to the benefit of all the fundamental guarantees of life, liberty and property to be found in that instrument. Hence, my approval of the view, announced in Kepner’s case, that the accused was entitled to the benefit of the jeopardy clause of the Constitution.
Assuming that it was competent for the court of first instance to proceed without a jury against the accused upon a mere complaint by an individual, I desire to express, my concurrence in the dissenting opinion of Mr. Justice McKenna, so far as it *536holds that the accused in the present case were entitled to the 'benefit of the jeopardy clause of the Constitution, and that after their acquittal in the tribunal 'assuming jurisdiction to try them for the crime of murder they could not thereafter, in any appellate tribunal, deriving its authority from the United States, be again tried for that crime or for any crime more serious than the one of which they were convicted in the court of first instance.
But I dissent from the opinion and judgment of the court in the present case upon the broader ground that, as the1 Constitution of the United States is the supreme law of the land; as that instrument declares that except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia when in actual service in time of-war or public danger, “no person shall be held to answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury,” and that “the trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury;” and as the people of the Philippine Islands are as much under the authority and jurisdiction of the United States as are the people within the limits of the several States and of the organized Territories of the United States, the prosecution of the accused, based only upon the written complaint of an individual, filed with a justice of the peace, and their trial by a single judge,-was without authority of law, and a nullity from beginning to end. I repeat substantially what has been said by me in former cases, that no person, within the territory and subject to'the sovereign jurisdiction of the United States, can be legally deprived of his fife or liberty for crime committed by him against the United States, except in the mode prescribed by the Constitution of the United States. I am unable to perceive how a principle declared by the supreme law of the land to be essential in all prosecutions for crime against the'United States ,can be recognized as applicable to a part of the- people subject to the sovereign jurisdiction of the United States, and yet be denied to another part of the people equally subject to the national authority. No tribunal or officer deriving its au*537thority from the United States can disregard the mandatory injunctions of the Constitution by which the Government of the United States is created, and under the sanction of which alone that Government exists and performs its functions. It may be that the application of these principles to the Philippine Islands and to the people who inhabit them may, particularly in criminal prosecutions, prove sometimes to be inconvenient. But no authority exists anywhere to set aside plain provisions of the supreme law of the land,- and substitute the law of convenience for the written fundamental law.

 Alabama—Bell v. State, 48 Alabama, 684; Berry v. State, 65 Alabama, 117; Sylvester v. State, 72 Alabama, 201.
California—People v. Gilmore, 4 California, 376; People v. Apgar, 35 California, 389; People v. Gordon, 99 California, 227.
Florida—Johnson v. State, 27 Florida, 245; Golding v. State, 31 Florida, 262. Illinois—Brennan v. People, 15 Illinois, 511; Barnett v. People, 54 Illinois, 325.
Iowa—State v. Tweedy, 11 Iowa, 350; State v. Helm, 92 Iowa, 540. Louisiana—State v. Dennison, 31 La. Ann. 847; State v. Victor, 36 La. Ann. 978.
Michigan—People v. Knapp, 26 Michigan, 112, 114; People v. Comstock, 55 Michigan, 405, 407.
Minnesota—State v. Lessing, 16 Minnesota, 75.
*541Mississippi—Morris v. State, 8 S. & M. 762; Hurt v. State, 25 Mississippi, 378.
Missouri—Prior to alteration effected by constitutional amendment of 1875 (as to which see State v. Simms, 71 Missouri, 538), in State v. Ross, 29 Missouri, 32; State v. Kattlemann, 35 Missouri, 105; State v. Brannon, 55 Missouri, 63.
New York—Prior to alteration effected by the Code of Procedure (as to which see People v. Palmer, 109 N. Y. 413), in Guenther v. People, 24 N. Y. 100; People v. Dowling, 84 N. Y. 478; and see People v. Cignarale, 110 N. Y. 23, 30.
Oregon—State v. Steeves, 29 Oregon, 85.
Tennessee—Campbell v. State, 9 Yerg. 333; Slaughter v. State, 6 Humph. 410, 415.
Texas—Jones v. State, 13 Texas, 168.
Virginia—Before alteration by statute (as to which see Briggs v. Commonwealth, 82 Virginia, 554), doctrine enforced in Stuart v. Commonwealth, 28 Gratt. 950. Reinstated by later statute, as to which see Forbes v. Commonwealth, 90 Virginia, 550, and Benton v. Commonwealth, 91 Virginia, 782.
Washington—State v. Murphy, 13 Washington, 229.
Wisconsin—State v. Martin, 30 Wisconsin, 216; State v. Hill, 30 Wisconsin, 416; State v. Belden, 33 Wisconsin, 120. (But not in cases of misdemeanors—Rasmussen v. State, 63 Wisconsin, 1.)
Georgia, owing to constitutional provisions, and by statute in the States of Indiana, Kansas and Kentucky, when a new trial is granted on motion of an accused he may be tried again for the greater offense of which he was acquitted on the first trial (Morris v. State, 1 Blackf. 37; Veatch v. State, 60 Indiana, 291; State v. McCord, 8 Kansas, 232; Commonwealth v. Arnold, 83 Kentucky, 1).