Sipperley v. Smith, 155 U.S. 86 (1894)

A. F. Sipperley and H. S. Lee, composing a partnership under the firm name of A. F. Sipperley & Co., doing business in the city of Salt Lake, Utah, made an assignment of their [p. 87] partnership property to one Ross in trust to convert the same into. money and pay creditors in the order named, first, M. J. Gray and the Union Bank of Greeley, Colorado, in full; second, Mrs. A. F. Sipperley, Mrs. E. J. Walling, and H. A. Lee, certain individual indebtedness, in full; third, their remaining cred-, itors. John O. Smith, George Whiting, Charles F. Connor/ and George S. Smith, composing the firm of Smith, Connor & . Co., brought suit against A. F. Sipperley and H. S. Lee, in the District Court for the Third Judicial District of Utah Territory, and levied an attachment on the assigned property upon the ground that Sipperley & Co. had disposed thereof with intent to defraud their creditors. Thereupon the preferred, creditors, M. J. Gray, the Union Bank of Greeley, Colorado,' Mrs. Sipperley, Mrs. Walling, and H. A. Lee, filed an intervening complaint in said suit, praying for a receiver, and that the assignment be declared valid and the indebtedness due them be ordered to be paid out of the proceeds of the property and for general relief; which intervening complaint was answered by the original plaintiffs, who prayed therein that the assignment be adjudged fraudulent and void. The cause was tried by the District Court of the Third Judicial District, a jury having been duly waived ; the trial judge filed findings of fact and conclusions of law, and rendered judgment, adjudging the assignment fraudulent and void ; dismissing the complaint of intervention ; and directing the receiver (the assignee having in the meantime been appointed receiver) to pay plaintiffs in certain other suits consolidated with this and then these plaintiffs.

Gray, Mrs. A. F. Sipperley, Mrs. E. J. Walling, H. A. Lee, and the Union Bank of Greeley, Colorado, Intervenors.” The record did not contain the prayer for and allowance of appeal to the Supreme Court of Utah, but showed as at the June erm, 1893, of that court, the following order; “ John O. naith et al. vs. A. F. Sipperley et al., Defts, and M. J. Gray [p. 88] et al., Intervenors & Appellants. This cause coming on regularly to be heard, was argued by Hon. John W. Judd in behalf of appellants, by Charles C. Dey, Esq., in reply, was submitted, and taken under advisement.” The judgment of the District Court was thereafter affirmed. The opinion of the Supreme Court is given and is entitled, “ John O. Smith et al., Respondents, vs. A. F. Sipperley et al., Appellants.” Subsequently this order was entered: “ John O. Smith et al. vs. A. F. Sipperley, Def’ts, and M. J. Gray et al., Intervenors & Appellants. In this cause counsel for appellants prays the allowance of an appeal from the judgment of this court, rendered therein, to the Supreme Court of the United States, and asks that the amount of a bond to be given thereon be now fixed, and it was ordered that such appeal, as prayed for, be and is hereby allowed, and the amount of a bond to be given thereon is fixed in the sum of five thousand dollars, and the amount of a bond for costs is fixed in the sum of five hundred (500) dollars.”

The record disclosed a bond dated December 22, 1893, entitled “ John O. Smith et al., Respondents, vs. A. F. Sipperley et al., Defendants, and M. J. Gray et al., Intervenors, Appellants,” signed by Mrs. Sipperley, Mrs. Walling, H. A. Lee, and the Union Bank of Greeley, Colorado, as principals, running to John O. Smith, George Whiting, Charles P. Connor, and George S. Smith, composing the firm of Smith, Whiting, Connor & Co., in the penal sum of $5500, and reciting that, “ Whereas the above-named Mistress A. F. Sipperley, Mistress E. J. Walling, H. A. Lee, and the Union Bank of Greeley, Colorado, have prosecuted an appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States,” etc. This bond was approved by the Chief Justice of Utah, and filed on the day of its date. Citation was issued, dated January 4, 1894, and directed to John O. Smith, George Whiting, Charles P. Connor, George S. Smith, and their attorneys, reciting that Mrs. Sipperley, Mrs. Walling, H. A. Lee, and the Union Bank of Greeley, Colorado, had appealed, etc., service of which citation was admitted January 12,1894. An assignment of errors in this court was also filed in that court January 12, entitled [p. 89] “John 0. Smith et al. vs. A. F. Sipperley et al., and Mrs. A. F. Sipperley, Mrs. E. J. Walling, H. A. Lee, and the Union Bank of Greeley, Colorado, Intervenors & Appellants.” No application for summons and severance as to M. J. Gray or any equivalent therefor appeared in the record, nor any order permitting severance; nor was any application made in this court for the issue of citation to A. F. Sipperley and H. S. Lee, or leave to perfect the appeal as to them; nor did they or Gray appear herein.

Seo . 711. The jurisdiction vested in the courts of the nited States in the cases and proceedings hereinafter [p. 92] mentioned shall be exclusive of the courts of the several States: First. Of all crimes and offences cognizable under the authority of the United States.”

The circumstances under which a court of the United States is at liberty upon habeas corpus to discharge one held in custody under the process of a state court was considered in Ex [p. 93] parte Royall, 117 U. S. 241, 251, 252. Royall was charged by indictments in one of the courts of Virginia with having violated certain statutes of that Commonwealth. Being held in custody by the state authorities for trial he' presented petitions for habeas corpus in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Virginia and prayed to be discharged upon the ground that the statutes under which he had been indicted were repugnant to the Constitution of the United States and, consequently, that he was restrained of his liberty in violation of that instrument. Rev. Stat. §§ 751, 752, 753, 754, 755, 761, 764; Act of March 3, 1885, c. 353, 23 Stat. 437. The petitions were dismissed, and the cases were brought by appeal to this court.

“We cannot suppose,” the court said, “that Congress intended to compel those courts by such means, to draw to themselves, in the first instance, the control of all criminal prosecutions commenced in state courts exercising authority Within the same territorial limits where the accused claims [p. 94] that he is held in custody in violation of the Constitution of the United States. The injunction to hear the case summarily, and thereupon ‘ to dispose of the party as law and justice require,’ does not deprive the court of discretion as to the time and mode in which it will exert the powers conferred upon it. That discretion should be exercised in the light of the relations existing, under our system of government, between the judicial tribunals of the Union and of the States, and in recognition of the fact that the public good requires that those relations be not disturbed by unnecessary conflict between courts equally bound to guard and protect rights secured by the Constitution. When the petitioner is in custody by state authority for an act done or omitted to be done in pursuance of a law of the United States, or of an order, process, or decree of a court or judge thereof ; or where, being a subject or citizen of a foreign state, and domiciled therein, he is in custody, under like authority, for an act done or omitted under any alleged right, title, authority, privilege, protection, or exemption claimed under the commission, or order, or sanction of any foreign state, or under color thereof, the validity and effect whereof depend upon the law of nations ; in such and like cases of urgency, involving the authority and operations of the General Government, or the obligations of this country to, or its relations with, foreign nations, the courts of the United States have frequently interposed by writs of habeas corpus and discharged prisoners who were held in custody under state authority. So, also, when they are in the custody of a state officer, it may be necessary, by use of the writ, to bring them into a court of the United States to testify as witnesses. The present cases involve no such considerations. Nor do their circumstances, as detailed in the petitions, suggest any reason why the state court of original jurisdiction may not, without interference upon the part of the courts of the United States, pass upon the question which is raised as to the constitutionality of the statutes under which the appellant is indicted. The Circuit Court was not at liberty, under the circumstances disclosed, to presume that the decision of the state court would be otherwise than is [p. 95] required by the fundamental law of the land, or that it would disregard the settled principles of constitutional law announced by this court, upon which is clearly conferred the power to decide ultimately and finally all cases arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States.”

to this court for a writ of habeas corpus by one who was a c erk in a national bank, and who alleged in his petition that [p. 96] he had been convicted in one of the courts of Michigan under a statute of that State, and sentenced to imprisonment for having embezzled the funds of that banking association. The principal ground upon which he asked for a writ of habeas corpus and for his discharge from custody was that the offence for which he was tried was covered by the statutes of the United States, and was therefore exclusively cognizable by the Federal courts. This court denied the application upon the authority of Ex parte Royall, observing that no reason had been suggested why the Supreme Court of the State might not review the judgment of the inferior state court upon the question as to the application of the statute under which the conviction was had to embezzlement by the servants and clerks of national banks, nor why it should not be permitted to do so without interference by the courts of the United States; that the question appeared to be one which, if properly presented by the record, might be reviewed in this court after a decision by the Supreme Court of State adverse to the petitioner. The judgment of conviction in that case was subsequently reviewed in the Supreme Court of Michigan, and that court held that jurisdiction of the offence charged against Fonda was exclusive in the Federal court. People v. Fonda, 62 Michigan, 401.

It may be well to refer to the case of In re Loney, 134 U. S. 372, 375. It will be observed that • this court in Ex parte Royall recognized certain cases as constituting exceptions to the general rule — among which are cases of urgency, involving the authority and operations of the general government. Loney’s case was of that class. It appeared from the record that he was duly summoned to give his deposition in a contested election case pending in the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States — a summons he was obliged to obey, unless prevented by sickness or unavoidable accident, under the penalty of forfeiting a named sum to the [p. 97] party at whose instance he was summoned, and of becoming subject to fine and imprisonment, Rev. Stat. § 116; that he appeared before a notary public in obedience to such summons | and proceeded to give his deposition; and that while in the office of an attorney for the purpose of completing his testi' mony, he was arrested under a warrant issued by a justice of | the peace and based upon the affidavit of one of the parties to i the contested election case charging him with wilful perjury committed in his deposition.

Certain citizens of Minnesota were the owners of a lot and building in Walsh County, North Dakota, which they had leased and which were occupied under their lessee. Against the occupant and one of the owners a proceeding was instituted in the District Court of Walsh County, in the name of the State upon the relation of its attorney general, under an act of North Dakota in that behalf, entitled “ An act to pre- I scribe penalties for the unlawful manufacture, sale, and keeping for sale intoxicating liquors, and to regulate the sale, barter, and giving away of such liquors for medical, scientific, and mechanical purposes,” (Laws N. Dakota, 1890, 309, c. j 110,) praying for an injunction against the occupant for un- I lawfully disposing bf intoxicating liquors upon the premises, I and against the owner for permitting the use thereof for the I unlawful keeping or selling of such liquors, which injunction I was granted, and under the restraining order and a search I warrant also issued the sheriff took possession of the building I and contents. While the sheriff had possession, Emil J. Pepke I entered the building under the license and permission of the I owners, whereupon, upon report of the sheriff, a rule upon hi® I [p. 101] to show cause why he should not be punished for contempt was entered by the District Court, the rule was made absolute, and Pepke was sentenced to imprisonment in the county jail for ninety days and to pay a fine of $200, and was committed accordingly. Thereupon Pepke presented his petition for habeas corpus to the District Judge of the United States for the District of North Dakota, setting forth grounds upon which he charged that section 13 of chapter 110 of the Laws of North Dakota of 1890, under which section the proceedings against him had been had, and the entire act were in contravention of the Constitution of the United States and of the State, and the judgment against him therefore void. The writ of habeas corpus was issued, and upon hearing was discharged and the petitioner remanded, whereupon the cause was brought to this court by appeal.