15. The question whether a convict shall be executed by the sheriff, as the law stood at the time of his trial and conviction, or by the warden of the penitentiary, as the law was subsequently amended, or whether he shall escape punishment altogether, involves no question of due process of law under the Fourteenth Amendment. Ib.
16. A petitioner in an application for a writ of prohibition to the judges of a. Court of Land Registration upon the ground that the contemplated proceedings in said court denied to parties interested due process of law, cannot maintain a writ of error from this court to the Supreme Court of the State without showing that he is personally interested in the litigation, and has been, or is likely to be, deprived of his property without due precess of law. Tyler v. Judges of the Court of Registration, 405.
17. The fact that other persons in whom he has no personal interest and who do not appear in the case, may suffer in that particular is not suffi- cient. Ib.
18. In a case brought here from a Circuit Court, the opinion regularly filed below, and which has been annexed to and transmitted with the record, may be examined in order to ascertain, in cases like this, whether either party claimed that a state statute upon which the judgment necessarily depended in whole or in part, was in contravention of the Constitution of the United States; but this must not be understood as saying that the opinion below may be examined in order to ascertain that which, under proper practice, should be made to appear in a bill of exceptions, or by an agreed statement of facts, or by the pleadings. Loeb v. Columbia Township, 472.
19. As the bonds in suit in this case were executed by the defendant town- ship, a corporation, and are payable to bearer, the present holder, be- ing a citizen of a State different from that of which the township was a corporation, was entitled to sue upon them, without reference to the citizenship of any prior holder. Ib.
20. The Circuit Court erred in holding that the petition in this case made a case that necessarily brought it within the decision in Norwood v. Baker, 172 U. S. 269. Ib.
21. Even if the third section of the statute of Ohio in question here be stricken out as invalid, the petition makes a case entitling the plaintiff to a judgment against the township. Ib.
22. The contention that, independently of any question of Federal law, the statute of Ohio under which the bonds were issued was in violation of the constitution of that State in that, when requiring the defendant township to widen and extend the avenue in question the legislature exercised administrative, not legislative, powers, is not supported by the decisions of the Supreme Court of Ohio made prior to the issuing of these bonds. Ib.
23. If a claim is made in a Circuit Court that a state law is invalid under the Constitution of the United States, this court may review the judg- ment at the instance of the unsuccessful party. Ib.
24. The authority of this court to review the action of the court below in
this case must be found in one of three classes of cases, in which, by section 5 of the Judiciary Act of March 3, 1891, an appeal or writ of error may be taken from a District or Circuit Court direct to this court. The classes of cases alluded to are as follows: 1. Cases in which the jurisdiction of the court is in issue, in which class of cases the question of jurisdiction alone is to be certified from the court below for decision; 2. Cases involving the construction or application of the Constitution of the United States; and 3. Cases in which the constitu- tionality of any law of the United States, or the validity or construction of any treaty made under its authority, is drawn in question. The court is of opinion that the case at bar is not embraced within either of those classes of cases. Arkansas v. Schlierholz, 598.
25. The final ruling of the state court at the trial of this case being based upon a state of facts which put the state statute in question entirely out of the case, no Federal question remained for the consideration of this court. Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railway Co. v. Ferris, 602. 26. Final decrees of the Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia in respect of final settlements in the orphan's court, may be reviewed in this court on appeal. Kenaday v. Sinnott, 606.
27. This court has jurisdiction to examine the proceedings in the Circuit Court of Appeals, and to reverse its order if its ruling is found erro- neous, or the reverse if its ruling was correct. Southern Railway Co. v. Postal Telegraph Cable Co., 641.
B. JURISDICTION OF CIRCUIT COURTS OF APPEALS.
1. A Circuit Court of Appeals has no jurisdiction to review upon writ of error the trial, judgment and sentence of an Indian to imprisonment for life, founded upon a verdict rendered on a trial of an indictment of the Indian for murder, by which verdict the jury find the defendant "guilty as charged in the indictment, without capital punishment." Good Shot v. United States, 87.
2. The receiver in this case, having voluntarily brought the case into the Circuit Court, by whose appointment he held his office, cannot, after that court has passed upon the matter in controversy, be heard to ob- ject to the power of that court to render judgment therein. Baggs v. Martin, 206.
3. Luxton v. North River Bridge Company, 147 U. S. 337, is decisive of the question raised in this case whether a final judgment or order has been entered by the Circuit Court which could be taken by writ of error to the Circuit Court of Appeals. Southern Railway Co. v. Postal Tele- graph Cable Co., 641.
See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 2.
C. JURISDICTION OF CIRCUIT COURTS. See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 2.
D. JURISDICTION OF THE COURT OF APPEALS OF THE DISTRICT OF
1. Where, in a controversy between an executrix and next of kin, a decree of the orphans' court approving the final account of the executrix has been reversed by the Court of Appeals on the appeal of the next of kin, and the cause remanded that the account might be restated in accord- ance with the principles set forth in the opinion of the Court of Ap- peals, involving a recasting of the entire account, the decree of the Court of Appeals is not final. Kenaday v. Sinnott, 606.
2. The Court of Appeals of the District of Columbia, sitting as an orphans' court, has jurisdiction over the settlement of estates, and controversies in relation thereto between the next of kin and the executrix, and re- sort to the chancery court is unnecessary. Ib.
See CASES AFFIRMED AND FOLLOWED, 2;
The conclusions in this case of the Supreme Court of Louisiana depended alone upon an interpretation of the local law of the State governing the sale, the record of title to real estate, and the nature, under the local law, of the rights of a mortgage creditor; and, accepting the rule of property under the law of that State to be as so announced, the proceed- ings in the equity cause were not res judicata, and the lis pendens created by that suit did not prevent the exercise by Maxwell of his right to foreclose his mortgage, and the title which he acquired in the foreclos- ure proceedings was not impaired by the pendency of that suit. Abra- ham v. Casey, 210.
1. Section 716, Rev. Stat., does not empower this court to review the pro- ceedings of military tribunals by certiorari. In re Vidal, 126.
2. The act of April 12, 1900, c. 191, having discontinued the tribunal estab- lished under that act, and created a successor, authorized to take pos- session of its records and to take jurisdiction of all cases and proceed- ings pending therein, this court has no jurisdiction to review its proceedings. Ib.
3. Such tribunals are not courts with jurisdiction in law or equity, within the meaning of those terms as used in Article Three of the Constitu- tion. Ib.
1. The Supreme Court of the State of Missouri having decided that the provision of the state constitution respecting the enactment of registra- tion laws does not limit the power of the General Assembly to create VOL. CLXXIX-45
more than one class composed of cities having a population in excess of one hundred thousand inhabitants, this conclusion must be accepted by this court. Mason v. Missouri, 328.
2. The general right to vote in the State of Missouri is primarily derived from the State; and the elective franchise, if one of the fundamental privileges and immunities of the citizens of St. Louis, as citizens of Missouri and of the United States, is clearly such franchise, as is regu- lated and established by the laws or constitution of the State in which it is to be exercised. Ib.
3. The power to classify cities with reference to their population having been exercised, in this case, in conformity with the constitution of the State, the circumstance that the registration law in force in the city of St. Louis was made to differ in essential particulars from that which regulated the conduct of elections in other cities in the State of Mis- souri, does not, in itself, deny to the citizens of St. Louis the equal pro- tection of the laws; nor did the exercise by the General Assembly of Missouri of the discretion vested in it by law, give rise to a violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Ib.
1. Without implying that the reasoning of the state court by which the conclusion was reached that under the statute of Louisiana both the Board of Liquidation and the Drainage Commission occupied such a fiduciary relation as to empower them to assert that the enforcement of the provisions of the constitution of the State would impair the obligations of the contracts entered into on the faith of the collection and application of the one per cent tax, and of the surplus arising there- from, this court adopts and follows it, as the construction put by the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana on the statutes of that State, in a matter of local and non-Federal concern. Board of Liquidation of New Orleans v. Louisiana, 622.
2. The proposition that the judgment of the Supreme Court of the State of Louisiana rests upon an independent non-Federal ground, finds no sem- blance of support in the record. Ib.
3. Considering the many, and in some respects ambiguous statutes of the State of Louisiana, this court concludes, as a matter of independent judgment, that the contract rights of the parties were correctly defined by the Supreme Court of that State. Ib.
4. This court's affirmance of the judgment below is without prejudice to the right of the Board of Liquidation and the Drainage Commission to hereafter assert the impairment of the contract right which would arise from construing the judgment contrary to its natural and necessary import, so as to deprive the Board of Liquidation of the power, in countersigning the bonds, to state thereon the authority in virtue of which they are issued. Ib.
1. An examination of the history of the appellant's claim shows that in order to get his patent he was compelled to accept one with a narrower claim than that contained in his original application; and it is well settled that the claim as allowed must be read and interpreted with reference to the rejected claim and to the prior state of the art, and cannot be so construed as to cover either what was rejected by the Patent Office, or disclosed by prior devices. Hubbell v. United States, 77. 2. This court concurs with the court below in holding that the cartridges made and used by the United States were not within the description contained in the appellant's claim.
See CONSTITUTIONAL LAW, 3.
1. The petition for a rehearing in this case is denied. Hubbell v. Hubbell (No. 198, October Term, 1897), 86.
2. The defendant in the court below moved to dismiss this case on the ground that the contract in relation to the property in question was with Griffith alone, and, that motion being denied, proceeded to offer evidence. Held that he could not assign the refusal to dismiss as error. Sigafus v. Porter, 116.
3. The briefs filed in this case are in plain violation of the amendment to Rule 31, adopted at the last term, and printed in a note to this case. Wisconsin, Minnesota &c. Railroad v. Jacobson, 287.
4. Where both courts below have concurred in a finding of fact, it will, iu this court, be accepted as conclusive, unless it affirmatively appears that the lower courts obviously erred. Workman v. New York City, &c., 552.
1. The fourth subdivision of section 13 of the act establishing the Court of Private Land Claims, which provides that "no claim shall be allowed for any land the right to which has hitherto been lawfully acted upon and decided by Congress or under its authority," applies to this case, and the claimant has no right to ask that court to pass upon its claim. Las Animas Land Grant Co. v. United States, 201.
1. An action against a receiver of a state corporation is not a case arising under the Constitution and laws of the United States simply by reason of the fact that such receiver was appointed by a court of the United States. Gableman v. Peoria, Decatur & Evansville Railway Co., 335. 2. A receiver appointed by a Federal court may be sued in that court as well as in the state court, but if in the state court, he is not entitled to re- move the cause on the sole ground of his appointment by the Federal court.
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