Hartranft v. Mullowny

Citations

• 247 U.S. 295
• 38 S. Ct. 518
• 62 L. Ed. 1123
• 1918 U.S. LEXIS 1910

Syllabus

<p>Under Jud. Code, §250, judgments of the Court.of Appeals of the District of Columbia in criminal cases, and judgments which are not final, are not reviewable by writ of error upon the ground that the jurisdiction of the trial court is in issue, or upon the ground that the construction of a law of the United States was brought in question by the defendant. •</p> <p>The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia to supervise the criminal proceedings of inferior tribunals by removal and review through certiorari, is analogous to that of the Court of King’s Bench; and the nature and functions of the writ in such cases are to be tested by common-law principles.</p> <p>At common law, when a cause before judgment was-removed by certiorari in order that justice might be done by quashing the indictment or information or proceeding to trial, or otherwise, as the circumstances might require, the nature of the cause .was not changed by the removal and a judgment quashing the writ was followed by a procedendo as a matter of course.</p> <p>The Supreme Court of the District, having by certiorari removed for consideration a criminal case from the local police court upon a pe- • tition alleging want of,jurisdiction and insufficiency of the information, afterwards entered judgment that the writ be quashed, the petition dismissed, and the record “remanded” to the police court “whence it came,” This judgment having been appealed to and affirmed by the Court of Appeals, Held: (1). That the judgment was in a case arising under the criminal laws; (2) that it was not final; and (3) that for these reasons a writ of error under Jud. Code; § 250, would not lie.</p>