The American Judiciary Part 13

*[Footnote: Booth _v._ Clark, 17 Howard's Reports, 322, 337; Hale _v._ Allinson, 188 U. S. Reports, 56.]*

If, therefore, as is commonly true in estates of any magnitude, part of the a.s.sets can only be recovered by suit in other States, there must be ancillary insolvency proceedings there, to clothe the princ.i.p.al a.s.signee with the right of action. Should the insolvent be the owner of land in another State, the t.i.tle to this can only be transferred in accordance with its law, and a foreign a.s.signment in insolvency will be wholly ineffectual. Nor will ancillary proceedings in insolvency be allowed to prejudice the rights of citizens of the State in which they are inst.i.tuted to any security which they might otherwise have for debts due them from the insolvent.[Footnote: Ward _v._ Conn. Pipe Mfg Co., 71 Conn., 345; 41 Atlantic Reporter, 1057; 42 Lawyers'

Reports Annotated, 706; 71 Am. State Reports, 207.] The right, however, of every sovereignty to postpone claims under a foreign bankruptcy or insolvency to the interests of its own people is modified in the United States by the const.i.tutional provision that the citizens of each State are ent.i.tled to all privileges of citizens in the other States.[Footnote: Blake _v._ McClung, 172 U. S. Reports, 239.]

CHAPTER XVII

CRIMINAL PROCEDURE

The American system of criminal procedure rests on the principle that the government should decide on the propriety of beginning all prosecutions, and then should bring and maintain, at its own expense, such as it may deem proper.

The first step ordinarily is the filing by an informing officer of a written complaint in the office of some court or with some magistrate, upon which a warrant of arrest issues as of course.

In some jurisdictions original informations in a trial court, as distinguished from indictments, can only be filed by leave of court first obtained. Such is the rule in the courts of the United States.[Footnote: United States _v._ Smith, 40 Federal Reporter, 755.]

There is no such preliminary consultation with judicial officers as characterizes European criminal procedure. The prosecuting officer a.s.sumes the entire responsibility of initiating the prosecution and of giving it the particular form that it may a.s.sume. He commonly acts only on such matters as are officially brought to his attention by constables or other officers of police. It is rare that the party injured by an offense complains to him personally. Hence many of the lesser offences go unpunished, particularly in large cities, because the police fail to report them, on account of favoritism or corruption.

The warrant refers to the complaint for its support. Between them, the offense charged, the person accused, and the thing to be done by the officer who is to make service must be particularly stated. "General warrants," that is, warrants of arrest or seizure, not specifying the person who is to be arrested, nor the particular place where the seizure is to be made, are expressly forbidden by the fourth amendment of the Const.i.tution of the United States as respects federal courts, and as respects those of the States, are generally prohibited by their Const.i.tutions.

Any private individual may, by night or day, arrest without warrant one whom he sees committing a felony or a breach of the peace or running off with goods which he has stolen. If he knows that a felony has been committed and has reasonable grounds for suspecting that it was the act of a certain person, he may arrest the latter, although without personal knowledge of his guilt.

A sheriff, constable, or other peace officer may arrest without warrant any one whom he has reasonable ground for suspecting to be guilty of a felony, although it may turn out that no such felony was ever committed. For any ordinary misdemeanor he could not, at common law, arrest without a warrant, unless he personally witnessed the wrongful act or was near enough to hear sounds indicating what was being done.

In practice, officers of local police arrest freely on mere suspicion and with no personal knowledge either that any offense has been committed or that, if any, the person taken in charge was connected with it. The only risk which they run is of an action for damages, and that is slight. If one were brought and they showed that they acted in good faith and not wholly without cause, the amount recovered would probably be very small, and in any case it would be difficult to collect a judgment against one of them, as they are generally men of small means.

In some of the original States a justice of the peace or higher magistrate, in whose actual presence certain misdemeanors were committed, could deal with the offender summarily and sentence him to a fine without any written complaint or warrant. This was a survival of colonial conceptions of the majesty of official station, and the statutes justifying the practice soon became practically obsolete.

It is one of the distinguis.h.i.+ng features of the English system of criminal procedure that any private individual can initiate a criminal prosecution, and that prosecutions are generally inst.i.tuted in that manner. In doing so, he exercises a right belonging to every member of the general public, and the proceeding is, in that point of view, a public one.[Footnote: See Maitland, "Justice and Police," 141.] At common law there were but two guaranties against thus bringing forward frivolous or malicious accusations. The complainant was obliged to verify his charge by oath, and he was liable to a civil action if the defendant was acquitted and it appeared that there was no reasonable ground for the prosecution.

In some of our States, also, if any private individual files a complaint under oath before a proper magistrate accusing another of a properly specified offense, a warrant of arrest may issue.

In many there are statutes authorizing _qui tam_ actions to be brought by any one. These are actions to recover a statutory penalty prescribed for some wrongful act in the nature of a misdemeanor. The term _qui tam_ comes from the Latin terms of the old English writ used for such proceedings, in which the plaintiff describes himself as one _qui tam pro domino rege quam pro seipso in hoc parte sequitur_. The plaintiff is styled "a common informer," and his action is for the joint benefit of himself and of the State, or of some other public corporation or officers designated by the statute. He is sometimes given an option to sue in the form of a civil action, or by an information and the use of criminal process. In proceedings of the latter description a warrant issues upon which the defendant is liable to arrest.[Footnote: Canfield _v._ Mitch.e.l.l, 43 Conn. Reports, 169.] The action may, under some statutes, be brought in the name of the government, though by and at the cost of the informer. In such case, unless it is otherwise provided, he retains the exclusive management of the cause as fully as if he appeared as the sole plaintiff on the face of the record. If the plaintiff obtains judgment, and collects the penalty, he must pay half of it over to the government. If he fails, he is personally liable to the defendant for the taxable costs of the action. Under such a statute, a public prosecuting officer can sue for the entire penalty, whenever no action has been brought by a private individual.

The tendency of modern American legislation is toward placing the collection of penalties for misdemeanors wholly in the hands of public officers. The _qui tam_ action is certainly a cheap mode of enforcing laws, and one likely to be pressed to a prompt issue. As observed by the late Judge Deady, "prosecutions conducted by such means compare with the ordinary methods as the enterprising privateer does to the slow-going public vessel."[Footnote: United States _v._ Griswold, 24 Federal Reporter, 361; 30 _id_., 762.] But they appeal to sordid motives and are liable to abuse. One who is exposed to such a suit often gets a friend to bring it, in order to forestall proceedings by others or by the State, and with a view to delaying or defeating the collection of the penalty. These considerations induced Parliament to restrict the remedy in England as early as the reign of Henry VII, and have proved of equal force in course of time in the United States.

Justices of the peace and local munic.i.p.al courts of criminal jurisdiction are generally given power to deal finally with a few petty offenses, subject to a right of appeal to a court where a jury trial can be had. As to all others, their function is, when the warrant of arrest has been executed, to inquire whether there is probable cause for holding the defendant to answer to the charge which has been made against him in a higher court, and if they find that such cause exists, to order him to give sufficient security that he will appear before it for trial. The question is not whether the evidence satisfies them of his guilt, but simply whether it is sufficient, in their judgment, to make it proper to send him where the charge can be more thoroughly investigated by those who have the right to condemn or to acquit.

In making this inquiry, they hear both sides, if the defendant has any testimony to offer. In most States he is now a competent witness in his own behalf, provided he desires to testify.

He cannot be interrogated in any court or before any magistrate without his consent. This is a weakness in the American system of criminal procedure. Under the English system of prosecutions by private persons, there are greater objections to subjecting an accused person to an examination, and it can now only be had by his consent.[Footnote: Maitland, "Justice and Police," 129.] The certainty in England also that criminal prosecutions may in any case be subjected to the power of a public officer by the interposition of the Attorney-General or the Director of Public Prosecutions makes it more important to safeguard a defendant who may be arraigned for a political offense, and whose prosecution may be inspired by reasons of a partisan nature. The magistrates upon whom the task of conducting or superintending the examination would naturally fall are also largely both representative of cla.s.s interests and unlearned in the law.

In the United States local prosecutors are often of a different party from that which controls the State or the United States.

They have no close connection with those administering the general affairs of the government. They hold office for fixed terms, not dependent on any s.h.i.+fting of parliamentary majorities or change of ministry. Committing magistrates are in a similar position. They are also in many cases trained lawyers. If our Const.i.tutions could be so modified or so construed as to allow them to ask the accused the questions that the sheriff who makes the arrest or the reporter who hurries after him to the jail is sure to ask, there are many reasons for believing that it would oftener prove a safeguard to innocence than an occasion for extorted and perhaps inconsiderate or misunderstood admissions.

And be that as it may, it would certainly lead up to important clues, and frequently bring out admissions that were both unquestionably true and necessary to establish guilt.

The fifth amendment to the Const.i.tution of the United States, and similar provisions in the various State Const.i.tutions, preclude, so long as they stand, any radical reform in this direction.

They speak for a policy that was necessary under the political conditions preceding the American Revolution, but which is out of harmony with those now existing in the United States. The interests of society are greater than those of any individual, and yet it is with us the State that is deprived in public prosecutions of an equal chance with the accused. While burdened with the necessity of proving his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, it cannot, according to the prevailing judicial opinion in this country, so much as ask him at any stage of the prosecution where he was at the time when the crime charged was committed.

The terms of our Const.i.tutions are not such as necessarily to demand the construction which has been generally given them by the courts. They have been commonly interpreted with a view to making them as helpful as possible to the accused.[Footnote: Boyd _v._ United States, 116 U. S. Reports, 616.] Provisions against compelling him to testify have been treated as if they forbade requesting him to testify. They would seem, on principle, quite compatible with a procedure under which the committing magistrates should in every case ask the defendant when first brought before them whether he desires to make a statement, telling him at the same time that he can decline if he chooses. Should he then make one, it should be written down at length in his own words, read over to him for his a.s.sent or correction, and properly attested. Many a guilty man is now acquitted whose conviction could have been secured on what such a paper would have disclosed or have given a clue to ascertaining.

Such an inquiry has long been the English practice.

The hearing before the committing magistrate, if any contest is made, generally does not take place until some time after the arrest. Each party is apt to wish time to prepare for it.

Meanwhile, the defendant can generally claim the privilege of release on bail, unless the crime be capital and the circ.u.mstances strongly point to his guilt. Here our practice differs from that of an English court of inquiry. While there bail must be allowed in case of misdemeanors and may be in case of felonies; the amount required is frequently so large as to be prohibitory.[Footnote: Maitland, "Justice and Police," 131.]

The essence of bail is that the prisoner should enter into an obligation, together with one or more others of pecuniary responsibility as his sureties, to appear whenever he may be called for in the course of the pending proceeding, on pain of forfeiting a certain sum of money. All our Const.i.tutions forbid the taking of excessive bail. The sum should be large enough to give a reasonable a.s.surance that he will not allow it to be forfeited. In fixing the amount, which in each case is left to the good judgment of the officer before whom it is taken, special regard should be had to the gravity of the offense, the nature of the punishment in case of conviction, and the means of the defendant or his friends. If too large an amount is demanded, the defendant can get relief on a writ of _habeas corpus_ issued by some superior judge.

This privilege of bail in most States extends to, or at the discretion of the court may be allowed at, any stage of a cause, not capital, even after a final judgment and sentence, provided an appeal has been allowed with a stay of execution.

Bail is given orally or in writing, according to the practice of the particular State. When given orally, it is termed a recognizance. This is entered into by the personal appearance of those who are to a.s.sume the obligation before a proper magistrate or clerk of court, and their due acknowledgment before him that they do a.s.sume it. He makes a brief minute of the fact at the time, from which at any subsequent time he can make up a full record in due form. When bail is given in writing, the obligation is prepared in behalf of the government and executed by the parties to it.

Whoever gives bail as surety for another is by that very fact given a kind of legal control over him. He can take him into actual manual custody without any warrant, and against his will, for the purpose of returning him to court and surrendering him to the sheriff. This right is a common law right, arising from the contract of suretys.h.i.+p, and is not bounded by State lines. If the princ.i.p.al absconds from the State, the surety can have him followed and brought back without any warrant of arrest.

The amount of the bail, should it be forfeited, is payable either to the government or to some other representative of the public interests, as may be prescribed by statute. If the sureties have any equitable claim to relief by a reduction of the amount, there is often given by statute or judicial practice a right to the court in which the obligation was given or before which its enforcement is sought to grant a reduction from the sum which would otherwise be due upon it.

When a committing magistrate requires the defendant to give bail to appear in a higher court, and he does not give it, he will be committed to jail to await his trial there. In this court he is sometimes tried on the complaint upon which he was originally arrested: oftener a new accusation is prepared. This may be either an information or an indictment.

At common law, no one could be tried for a felony unless a grand jury were first satisfied that there was good ground for it. The grand jury consisted of not more than twenty-four inhabitants of the county, and in practice never of more than twenty-three, summoned for that purpose to attend at the opening of a term of court. To authorize a prosecution the a.s.sent of twelve of them was required. They heard only the case for the prosecution, and heard it in secret, after having been publicly charged by the court as to the nature of the business which would be brought before them. The court appointed one of them to act as their foreman, and he reported back their conclusions in writing, and in one or the other of two forms--by presentment or indictment.

A presentment was a presentation, on their own motion, of an accusation against one or more persons. They were the official representatives of the public before the court, and it might well be that offenses had occurred, and become matters of common notoriety, prosecutions for which no one cared or dared to bring.

Such a proceeding was comparatively rare.

The common course was to pa.s.s only on such written accusations as others might submit to their consideration. These were called bills of indictment. If the grand jury believed that there were sufficient grounds for upholding any of them, their foreman endorsed it as "A true bill," and it then became an indictment.

If, on the other hand, they rejected a bill of indictment as unfounded, the foreman indorsed it as "Not a true bill," or with the Latin term "_Ignoramus_," and this was the end of it.

The organization and functions of the American grand jury are similar, except that here we have prosecuting attorneys to procure the presence of the necessary witnesses and direct the course of their examination. In the Federal courts almost all criminal accusations, great or small, are, and by the fifth amendment to the Const.i.tution of the United States all charges of infamous crimes must be, prosecuted by presentment or indictment.

In most of the States the intervention of a grand jury is requisite only in case of serious offenses; in some only in capital cases. It is obvious that it is less needed here than in England, since here it is not within the power of any private individual to inst.i.tute criminal proceedings against another at his own will, but they are brought by a public officer commissioned for that very purpose and acting under the grave sense of responsibility which such authority is quite sure to carry with it. The grand jury, however, has its plain uses wherever political feeling leads to public disorder. It has also, since the Civil War, been found an effective restraint in some of the Southern States, whether for good or ill, upon prosecutions for violations of certain laws of the United States, brought against members of a community in which those laws were regarded with general disfavor.

Prosecutions by information are those not founded on a presentment or indictment. The information is a written accusation filed in court by the prosecuting officer. In certain cla.s.ses of cases, the leave of the court must be first asked in some jurisdictions. It is not necessary that it be supported by any previous statement or complaint under oath. The officer who prepares it acts under an oath of office, and that is deemed sufficient to give probability to whatever charges he may make.

If the defendant has already been bound over by a committing magistrate, such an information may take the place of the original complaint on which the arrest was made. If he has not yet been arrested, or if he was arrested and discharged by such a magistrate, the filing of an information is accompanied by a request for the issue of a warrant for his arrest from the court.

Such a paper is called a bench warrant, and is granted whenever necessary, whether upon a presentment, indictment, or information.

An information may be amended by leave of the court at any time.

A presentment or indictment cannot be. They, when returned to court, are the work of the grand jury, and they end its work. An amendment of a legal process can logically be made only by the hand which originally prepared it. This rule leads to the escape of many a criminal. If prosecuted by indictment, the case against him must be substantially proved--in whole or part--as there stated, or he goes free. Prosecuting officers therefore naturally prefer to proceed upon information whenever the law permits it.

The intervention of a grand jury is also often the necessary cause of a delay alike prejudicial to the State and to the prisoner. It can only be called in when a court is in session, by which it can be instructed as to its duties and to which it is to report its doings. Months often elapse in every year when no such court is in session. For this reason, in case of a poor man under arrest on a charge of crime, who cannot furnish bail, it would often be much better for him were his liability to be brought to trial to be settled promptly by a single examining magistrate. At the hearing in that case also he has a right to be present and to be heard. Before a grand jury he has no such right.

In most States, the great majority of indictments are against those who have already been committed on a magistrate's warrant to answer to the charge, should an indictment be found. The accused thus has two chances of escape before he can be put on trial for the charge against him: one by a discharge ordered by the committing magistrate, and one by the refusal of the grand jury to return "a true bill." A grand jury is more apt to throw out a charge as groundless than a single magistrate. He feels the full weight of undivided responsibility. If he err by discharging the prisoner, he knows that it may let a guilty man go free, untried. If he err by committing him for trial, he knows that, if innocent, the jury are quite sure to acquit him.

He acts also in public. The whole community knows or may know the proofs before him, and will hold him to account accordingly.

On the other hand, in the grand jury room all is secret. The prosecuting attorney, if admitted, does not remain while the jurors are deliberating over their decision. No one outside knows who may vote for and who against the return of an indictment. Every opportunity is thus afforded for personal friends.h.i.+p for the accused or business connection with him to have its influence. Judges know this, and in their charge often emphasize the importance and gravity of the duty to be performed.

In 1903, the prosecuting officer in one of the small counties in Kentucky had prepared indictments against several men of some local prominence for arson and bribery. A special grand jury was summoned to act upon them. There was reason to expect some reluctance on the part of several. Of the witnesses for the State some were no less reluctant. There was great public excitement in the court town. One witness came there over ninety miles by rail hidden, for fear of his life, in a closed chest in the car of an express company. The grand jury were told by the court that they must make their inquiry a thorough one and indict without fear or favor every person in the county who ought to be indicted. "If," the judge added, "the evidence calls for indictments and you don't make them, they will be made anyway.

If you do not do your full duty, I will do mine by a.s.sembling another grand jury." They did theirs under these stirring injunctions, and the indictments were promptly found.

After the indictment or information comes the arraignment. This is bringing the defendant before the court and, after the charge made against him has been read, directing him to plead to it.

Before the plea is entered, if he has no counsel, he is asked if he desires the aid of one, and if he responds that he does (or should he not, if the court thinks he ought to have counsel), some lawyer will be a.s.signed to that duty. Some of the younger members of the bar who are present are generally desirous of being so a.s.signed to defend those who have no means to employ such a.s.sistance. The court ordinarily makes the a.s.signment from among their number, but in grave cases often appoints lawyers of greater experience and reputation. No one who is so a.s.signed is at liberty to decline without showing good cause for excuse. A small fee is often allowed by statute in such cases from the public treasury. Statutes are also common providing that witnesses for the defense may be summoned at the cost of the government, if the defendant satisfies the court that their testimony will be material, and that he is unable to meet this expense.