141 F. 169 | U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Western Washington | 1905
An attack upon the jurisdiction of this court has been made, and its existence denied, in an irregular manner, upon the argument of a petition for a new trial after a judgment in favor of-the plaintiff had been entered. The formalities of procedure, however, are not important in consideration of questions affecting jurisdiction, and especially so when the constitutionality of the court is made the subject of a controversy.
It is first in order to make a concise statement of the defendant’s contention and the questions submitted for decision, and I deem the following a fair statement: The first section of the third article of the Constitution of the United States provides that:
“The judicial power of the United States shall be vested in one Supreme Court, and in such inferior courts as the Congress may from time to time ordain and establish. * * * ”
By this provision, the Supreme Court is the only national court which can exist without the exercise of the creative power vested in Congress, and all other courts, in which the national judicial power is, or may be, vested, must of necessity come into being by virtue of statutes duly enacted by Congress, and the courts of the United States, inferior to the Supreme Court, have only the powers and jurisdiction conferred by acts .of Congress. The jurisdiction of a court, both as to matter and the territorial limits thereof, may be enlarged from time to time by acts of Congress, and, in like manner, diminished, but a national court as a distinct entity cannot be a product of evolution, nor can its origin be veiled in the dimness and forgetfulness of time. Therefore, if this court has a legal existence, there should be found somewhere in the body of the statutes enacted by Congress words appropriate to express a positive intention on the part of Congress to “ordain and establish” it as one of the courts composing the judicial system, and to clearly define its jurisdiction.
“A court” has been defined to be an incorporeal being, and as that body in the government to which the public administration of justice is delegated. It is in this sense that the word “courts” in the Constitution must be understood, and consistently with the general plan of our government and the judicial history of our country the courts ordained and established by Congress, pursuant to the Constitution, should be organized tribunals, their existence should be perpetual, and they should have the administrative and judicial powers pertaining to courts of judicature, and adequate to the efficient administration of justice within the scope and range of national responsibility.
“Is hereby detached from the judicial district of Washington, and made a separate judicial district, and shall be called the ‘Eastern District of Washington,’ and the residue of said state of Washington, with the waters thereof, shall hereafter be the ‘Western District of Washington.’ ”
The second section of the act provides that the District Judge of the judicial district of Washington in office at the time this act takes effect shall be the District Judge for the Western District of Washington, and that the clerk of the Circuit Court, the clerk of the District Court, the district attorney, assistant district attorneys, marshal, deputy marshals, deputy clerks, and referees in bankruptcy resident in said Western judicial district of Washington shall continue in office, and be such officers in said Western District until the expiration of their respective terms of office, or until their successors shall be duly appointed and qualified. Section 6 of the act provides that the office of marshal, district attorney, deputy marshals, assistant district attorneys, and all other officers authorized by law and made necessary
“And all causes and proceedings of every name and nature, except criminal,, now pending in the courts of the judicial district of Washington as heretofore constituted, whereof the courts of the Western judicial district of' Washington as hereby constituted would have had jurisdiction if said district and the courts thereof had been constituted when said causes or proceedings-were instituted, shall be, and are hereby, transferred to and the same shall be proceeded with in the Western judicial district of Washington as hereby constituted, and jurisdiction over the same is hereby vested in the courts of said Western judicial district, and the records and proceedings therein and relating to said proceedings and causes shall be certified and transferred thereto: Provided, that all motions and causes submitted, and all causes- and proceedings, except criminal, including proceedings in bankruptcy, now pending in said judicial district of Washington as heretofore constituted, in, which the evidence has been taken in whole or in part before the present district judge of the judicial district of Washington as. heretofore constituted, or taken in whole or in part and submitted and passed upon by the said district judge, shall be proceeded with and disposed of in said Western judicial district of Washington as constituted by this act.”
Section 8 provides that regular terms of the “Circuit and District Courts of the United States for the Western District of Washington” shall be held at the times and places therein specified.
Section 9 provides: “That the terms of said courts shall not be limited to any particular number of days, nor shall it be necessary to adjourn by reason of the intervention of a term elsewhere; but the court intervening may be adjourned until the business of the court in session is concluded.”
Section 11 repeals all other laws so far as inconsistent with the provisions of this act, and section 12 provides that the act shall take effect immediately after its approval by the President. Sections 3, 4, and 5 relate exclusively to the Eastern District, and section 10 relates exclusively to prosecutions for offenses committed prior to the date of the act. Having set forth substantially the provisions of this law, it is to be especially noted that there is an omission of the creative words which an observance of the Constitution would indicate as appropriate and necessary to ordain and establish courts. There is also an omission of any general provision defining the jurisdiction and powers of courts within either of the two newly organized districts. The act fails to confer upon the courts mentioned jurisdiction and power co-extensive with that of other District and Circuit Courts of the United States; the only jurisdiction conferred being limited to causes and proceedings pending at the time of the-
This court does in fact exist, and it has» been recognized and its jurisdiction invoked by litigants and the executive department of the government. The Supreme Court of the United States, as well as the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, has treated it as ■a lawfully established Circuit Court of the United States, subject to the appellate jurisdiction of those tribunals, by issuing writs of mandate directing judgments affecting important rights to be entered in -accordance with their decisions, and, on the ground that the court •cannot cease to perform its functions, it might decline to listen to the defendant’s invitation to declare itself nonexistent, and pass the questions up to the appellate courts for final determination, but I deem it my duty to render a decision and give reasons for overruling the •defendant’s protest.
In deciding the question submitted, I am required to ascertain the •object which Congress had in view when the statute under consideration was enacted, and to give effect to the legislative will, as expressed by its provisions. The crudeness of this piece of legislation must "be admitted, and from its crudeness arises the necessity for judicial construction. A law is not to be ignored nor set aside as a nullity merely because its meaning is obscured by imperfections in its composition. If enough is expressed to enable intelligent minds to ascertain the legislative will, necessary inferences must be drawn to supply omissions and correct apparent defects. It is impossible to be mistaken with regard to the real object of this law, when a view is taken of the conditions and circumstances which prompted its enactment. The state of Washington was admitted into the Union of states on an equal footing with the original states, and by the enabling act it was made a judicial district and attached to the Ninth Judicial Circuit. The powers and jurisdiction of other Circuit and District Courts were conferred upon a Circuit Court and a District Court for said district. Pursuant to that law. and the compact contained in the state Constitution, Washington entered the Union, and thereafter the Circuit and District Courts were organized, and through them the national government performed its judicial functions within the state. The district being large, and the volume of
Beginning with those of recent date, I find that the act creating the Western District of New York, and the acts dividing the Districts of West Virginia and Kentucky, found on pages 175, 736, and 781 of the thirty-first volume of United State Statutes, are similar in every important particular to the statute under consideration. It is regrettable, however, that those statutes should have been taken as models, instead of the act creating the Middle District of Pennsylvania, and establishing courts therein, found on page 880 of the same volume (Act March 2, 1901, c. 801 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 405]). The act relating to the state of Nevada constituted that state a judicial district, and" provided for the appointment of a District Judge, marshal, district attorney, and for clerks and deputies, and attached the district to what was then the Tenth Circuit, now the Ninth Circuit, and prescribed the place and times for holding terms of the Circuit Court of the United States and of the District Court of the United States for said district, and conferred upon the District Court of the United States for the District of Nevada, and the judge thereof, and upon the Circuit Court of the United States for said District of Nevada, and the judge thereof, the same powers and jurisdiction in said district which are vested in said courts and judges of the United States in the other districts of the Tenth Circuit. The act does not by express words ordain and establish a Circuit Court or a District Court otherwise than by creating a district, providing for the officers necessary to organize courts, prescribing the terms of a District Court and a Circuit Court to be held, and conferring jurisdiction and judicial power upon the courts and judges.
The Circuit Courts for the Districts of California and Oregon were organized pursuant to acts of Congress, approved March 3, 1863 (12 Stat. 794, c. 100). In lieu of a clear declaration establishing a Circuit Court to exist continuously in each of said districts, the effective words of that statute are as follows:
“And there shall hereafter be Circuit Courts held for the districts of the states of California and Oregon by the Chief Justice, or one of the Associate Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States assigned or allotted to the circuit to which such districts may respectively belong, and the District Judges of such districts, severally and respectively, either of whom shall constitute a quorum, which Circuit Courts, and the Judges thereof, shall have like powers and exercise like jurisdiction as other Circuit Courts, and the judges thereof.”
The act of August 5, 1886, c. 928, 24 Stat. 308 [U. S. Comp. St. 1901, p. 324], by which the Southern District of California was created, contains no clause creating courts or conferring jurisdiction other than the provisions establishing the new district, and providing for the appointment of a district judge and officers for the new district, and designating the times and places for holding terms of the Circuit and District Courts. That law deserves commendation in one particular. It does not disturb the previously existing courts in California, except to the necessary extent of cutting off part of their territorial jurisdiction, and substituting “Northern District of
Judiciary Act 1789, c. 20, 1 Stat. 73, under which the federal courts were first organized, created 13 judicial districts, and created a district court for each, and also made provision for terms or sessions' of said courts, but it contains no similar words creating or establishing Circuit Courts as permanent, organized bodies. The Circuit Courts originally came into existence by virtue of a clause in the fourth section of the act, which reads as follows:
“And that there shall be held annually in each district of said circuits, two courts, which shall be called Circuit Courts, and shall consist of any two justices of the Supreme Court, and the district judge of such districts, any two of whom shall constitute a quorum.”
It has never been supposed that this provision of the first judiciary act required two Circuit Courts to be organized annually in each district, although that is the literal effect, if the word “courts” as there used means organized judicial bodies. If that definition is not comprehended in the sentence, there is no provision in the act whereby the Circuit Courts were established. In the practical interpretation of the law by the operation of the government under it, the words “two courts” mean two terms of a court and the sense of the law is the same as it has been rendered by the compilation of the Revised Statutes of the United States. The same formula by which the Circuit Courts were originally established has been copied substantially in a number of acts of Congress creating additional Circuit Courts. See the act relating to North Carolina (Act June 4, 1790, c. 17, 1 Stat. 126); the act relating to Rhode Island (Act June 23, 1790, c. 21, 1 Stat. 128); the act relating to Vermont (Act March 2, 1791, c. 12, 1 Stat. 197); the act to amend the judicial system of the United States (Act April 29, 1802, c. 31, 2 Stat. 156); the act establishing Circuit Courts in the Districts of Kentucky, Tennessee, and Ohio (Act Feb. 24, 1807, c. 16, 2 Stat. 420). In all of the instances cited Congress has exercised the power to ordain and establish Circuit Courts, by enacting laws creating districts, and, except in the act establishing the Southern District of California, designating the judges to be constituent members of courts styled “Circuit Courts,” and providing for the other necessary officers in each district, and fixing the places and dates for holding terms of said courts, and defining their powers
The District of Washington included within its boundaries the whole state of Washington, and it was all within the Ninth Judicial Circuit. As the act dividing the district does not by any express provision, nor by implication, change the boundaries of the circuit, nor diminish the jurisdiction of the appellate courts, nor impair the powers of the justices and judges thereof, the general laws of the United States relating to the jurisdiction, powers, and duties of the Supreme Court and its members, and of the Circuit Court of Appeals, and circuit judges have the same force in both districts now as previous to the division, and the Justice of the Supreme Court allotted to the Ninth Circuit, and the Circuit Judges of the Ninth Circuit, are all members of this court.
The peculiar situation in which I am placed by the defendant’s protest at this stage of the case compels me to assign reasons for asserting the lawful authority of the district judge as a member of this court. Perhaps I am magnifying the importance of this matter; but, in view of the many surprises in the decisions of the appellate courts of jurisdictional questions, it behooves the nisi prius courts to look well to the foundation upon which their jurisdiction rests, in every case when a doubt is suggested, and I am constrained to consider the questions raised-by the defendant’s protest seriously.
Now, as to the question whether there is or is not a lawfully appointed district judge for the Western District of Washington. My appointment as a District Judge was made by the President and confirmed by the Senate, and my tenure is during good behavior, and I
The act of March 2, 1905, dividing Washington into two judicial districts interpreted consistently with the practice of Congress and the judicial history of the country, and the general laws in force relating to the federal judiciary and the jurisdiction and powers of the federal courts and judges, lacks none of the essentials of a sufficient organic law, and I hold that this court exists legally and is, in fact, the same United States Circuit Court in which this action was originally commenced. Its title has been changed to conform to the change made by detaching part of the territory previously within its jurisdiction to form a new district, but in other respects it is the same court, having the same judges and officers, and the same power and jurisdiction within the remaining part of its territorial jurisdiction that it had previous to the division of the district, and it is still within the boundaries of the Ninth Judicial Circuit, and a constituent thereof.
I direct that an order be entered overruling the defendant’s protest and denying the petition for a new trial.