United States ex rel. Crawford v. Addison

THIS was an application for a peremptory mandamus or for a rule to show cause why the judges of the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia should not execute a judgment in that court, by which Henry Addison had been directed to be ousted of the mayoralty of Georgetown. Addison had sued out a writ of error, returnable to December term, 1860, and filed the usual bond, which the Circuit Court decided to amount to a supersedeas, and accordingly suspended the judgment of ouster. Mr. Brent and Mr. Carlisle, counsel for Crawford, filed his petition, accompanied by a transcript of the record, and moved for a peremptory mandamus or a rule to show cause. The motion was opposed by Mr. Bradley and Mr. Henry Winter Davis. The reporter has only notes of the arguments of Mr. Carlisle and Mr. Bradley.

It was agreed by the counsel, that the office of mayor, referred to in the proceedings in this case, is elected for two years, and that the salary is $1,000 per annum, payable monthly. The record so stated.

Mr. Carlisle contended that the writ of error had been improvidently issued in this case, and consequently there was no supersedeas. The act of 1816 (3 Stat. at L., 261) provides that no cause shall hereafter be removed from the Circuit Court of the United States for the District of Columbia to the Supreme Court of the United States by appeal or writ of error, unless the matter in dispute in such cause shall be of the value of $1,000 or upwards, exclusive of costs. He then made the following points:

1. Whether, assuming that the Government is entitled to execution of the judgment of ouster, and the relator to his execution for costs, the proper remedy is by mandamus from this court. That it is the proper and only adequate remedy where execution is improperly denied by the court below, and in other like cases, has been repeatedly held by this court.

United States v. Peters, 5 Cranch, 115.

Livingston v. Dorgenois, 7 Cranch, 577.

Life and Fire Insurance Co. v. Wilson, 8 Peters, 303.

Postmaster General v. Trigg, 11 Peters, 173.

Stafford v. Union Bank of Louisiana, 16 Howard, 135.

Stafford v. Union Bank of Louisiana, 17 Howard, 276.

2. That it is mere matter of discretion, whether the rule to show cause or, to prevent delays, the alternative mandamus is to be granted. It must depend upon the nature of the case.

Life and Fire Insurance Co. v. Adams, 9 Peters, 571.

In the present case, the record shows in advance the sole cause against the mandamus. The question is concerning the title to an office of public trust, the term of which will be about immediately expiring at the commencement of the next term of this court. Nearly one-half the term has been consumed in the proceedings below; and as the record here shows, it is established by verdict and judgment, that during all the time which has elapsed, the office has been occupied without any lawful warrant, to the defeat of the popular will, in violation of the charter of the city, and to the prejudice of the relator's right. It seems not easy to imagine a case where the discretion of the court can be more appropriately exercised in dispensing with the rule, and proceeding at once to consider the cause shown.

It remains now to inquire whether the cause shown by the record is sufficient for the denial of the motion.

That cause is, that the judgment of ouster and for costs is superseded by reason of the matters in that behalf spread upon the record.

And the sole question now is, is the judgment effectually superseded under the statutes of the United States?

The means of determining the question are before the court, in the transcript filed with the petition.

It cannot be denied, that this court will entertain such a question, and determine the legality of the supposed supersedeas, where it is alleged as cause against the mandamus. The cases already cited abundantly show this. In the case in 16 Howard, this court itself suggested the remedy by mandamus, where a supersedeas had been improvidently allowed by the court below. And in the case in 5 Cr. (U.S. v. Judge Peters) the cause of refusing execution being shown to be an act of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, this court, upon the motion for mandamus, considered the constitutionality of that act, pronounced it unconstitutional, and awarded a peremptory mandamus.

So that it would seem, when the question of supersedeas or no supersedeas arises, and is necessary to be determined upon a mandamus for execution, this court will determine every question, of whatever nature, necessarily involved in the principal inquiry.

In other instances, the question of the validity of the supersedeas has arisen here in cases where there was an admitted jurisdiction of the cases on writ of error or appeal-the question being whether, notwithstanding such admitted jurisdiction, the judgment or decree below ought not to be executed, by reason of a failure to comply with the terms of the statute regulating the supersedeas.

Here we maintain that there could be no possible superdeas, because the case is not one in which a writ of error lies.

If that writ of error were here, a simpler and more obvious course would be, to move to dismiss it. But the judgment below was rendered since the commencement of the present term of this court, and the writ is returnable to the next term, when the office will have nearly expired.

If it be clear that no writ of error lies, it would seem to be a singular defect in the law, if the successful party below can be practically and absolutely defeated of his right by the suing out of such writ. With a court below, scrupulous of deciding, in the first instance, the question of the jurisdiction of this court, it would be easy to imagine examples and to put cases where the cause of justice would be entirely perverted.