2 Mont. 531 | Mont. | 1877
The respondents were indicted for an assault and battery in the district court for the county of Jefferson. They demurred to the indictment on the ground that said court had no jurisdiction of such an offense. The court below sustained the demurrer, and the district attorney for the first judicial district, on behalf of the Territory and in its name, in accordance with the statute allowing the same, appealed the case to this court, and assigns this ruling as error.
The ninth section of the Organic Act of the Territory provides that the “supreme and district courts respectively shall possess chanceiy as well as common-law jurisdiction.” The question presented to us is this : does this grant of jurisdiction to the supreme and district courts authorize them to hear and determine such a cause as the one before us, without any provision of the statutes of the Territory, or in contravention of its statutes. "What does the term “common-law jurisdiction ” imply ? Bouvier describes courts in his Institutes as follows: “ When considered as to the object of their jurisdiction, they are (1) courts of common law; (2) courts of equity; (3) courts of admiralty; and (4) courts-martial.” * * * “ Courts of common law are-established to protect legal rights and to redress legal injuries. The remedies for the redress of wrongs and for the enforcement of rights are distinguished into two classes: first, those which are administered in courts of common law; and secondly, those which are administered in courts of equity. Eights, which are recognized and protected, and wrongs, which are redressed by the former
All wrongs are legal injuries. Common-law courts then have for one of their objects the redress of public wrongs, or in other words, the punishment of crimes. A court having common-law jurisdiction has the same jurisdiction as common-law courts. The only meaning that can be derived from the phrase “ common-law jurisdiction,” is the right to hear and determine cases at common law. This is what common-law courts were instituted for. It is believed that the language used in our Organic Act, “ coinmon-law jurisdiction,” was intended to vest in the district courts and supreme court of the Territory the same jurisdiction as was possessed by all the superior common-law courts of England. The judicial system that prevailed in most of the States at the time the Organic Act was enacted by congress (of which the one for this Territory is a copy), included one court having jurisdiction of all common-law causes, civil and criminal, and that the intention of congress at that time, and when our Organic Act was passed, was to provide for a judicial system similar to that which had prevailed in most of the States, and which the great mass of the citizens of the United States were familiar with. Even while the oldest States were colonies of Great Britain, they never had a judicial system that coincided with that of the mother country. Generally, with them, one court had all of the original jurisdiction that was possessed by the several superior courts of common law in England, and this was said to possess common-law jurisdiction. See Graham on Jurisdiction, 139,140, as to the jurisdiction of the supreme court of New York when that State was a colony. And here we have the origin of this phrase. A court that had common-law jurisdiction had the right to hear and determine every case that did not fall within the classes known as suits in equity or admiralty, or matters of which a court-martial took cognizance. It had the same jurisdiction as the combined jurisdictions of the several superior common-law courts of England. When a new legal right was created, or a legal wrong proscribed, it was not necessary to pass a statute giving any court jurisdiction of the same, for a court having common-law jurisdiction had so
Chancery jurisdiction is well known. It does not embrace a cognizance of criminal cases. The right to hear and determine such cases must come under the grant of common-law jurisdiction. And it would seem that the proper construction of this language of that court would be that this grant of common-law jurisdiction included the right to hear and determine almost every criminal matter that “ can be litigated in a court of justice.”
It may also be observed that in the above case of Ferris v. Higley, the court derived what jurisdiction congress intended to confer upon the probate court of Utah, from the language of the Organic Act, and the history of the jurisprudence that generally prevails in the United States. It holds that the jurisdiction of the probate court of Utah must be confined to the probate of wills and matters of estates. The justice of the peace courts have a very limited jurisdiction. They were evidently intended as inferior courts. "Where then are we to have a court with general and original jurisdiction of all cases at law, such as were the courts known as common-law courts in the several States, if it is not the district and supreme courts i Such I am confident is the character of our district court and so intended by the power that created it. Hence it would have jurisdiction of the case at bar because it is a case at law.
The fact that under the amendment to our Organic Act approved March 2, 1867, the probate court would have jiuisdiction of this case, does not militate against the above views. Under the second section of this amendment “ the probate courts of the Territory of Montana, in their respective counties, * * * are hereby authorized to hear and determine * * * such criminal cases arising under the laws of the Territory as do not require the intervention of a grand jury.” It is not uncommon to find two courts having concurrent jurisdiction over the same class
In the Matter of Martin Conner, 39 Cal. 98, it was held that, within the purview of the act of congress, approved April 14, 1802, conferring upon certain State courts the right to naturalize aliens, a court having jurisdiction of some common-law cases was a court of common-law jurisdiction. It cannot, however, have been the intention of the framers of our Organic Act, that the giving of the district and supreme courts jurisdiction over some law or common-law actions, would be a compliance with the terms used. The probate court originally had jurisdiction only of matters pertaining to estafes and wills. The justice of the peace courts have by the terms of the Organic Act a very limited jurisdiction, and should the legislative power of the Territory confer upon the district and supreme court jurisdiction only of a few law cases, rightfully and in accordance with the provisions of the Or
Judgment reversed._