Amendments V and VI

Document 33

United States v. Burr

Marshall, Chief Justice, delivered the following opinion:

In considering the question which was argued yesterday, it appears to be necessary to decide: 1st. Whether the court, sitting as a court, possesses the power to commit any person charged with an offence against the United States. 2d. If this power be possessed, whether circumstances exist in this case which ought to restrain its exercise.

The first point was not made in the argument, and would, if decided against the attorney for the United States, only change the mode of proceeding. If a doubt can exist respecting it, that doubt arises from the omission in the laws of the United States to invest their courts, sitting as courts, with the power in question. It is expressly given to every justice and judge, but not to a court. This objection was not made on the part of Colonel Burr, and is now mentioned, not because it is believed to present any intrinsic difficulty, but to show that it has been considered. This power is necessarily exercised by courts in discharge of their functions, and seems not to have been expressly given, because it is implied in the duties which a court must perform, and the judicial act contemplates it in this light. They have cognizance of all crimes against the United States; they are composed of the persons who can commit for those crimes; and it is obviously understood, by the legislature, that the judges may exercise collectively the power which they possess individually, so far as is necessary to enable them to retain a person charged with an offence in order to receive the judgment which may finally be rendered in his case. The court say, this is obviously understood by the legislature, because there is no clause expressly giving to the court the power to bail or to commit a person who appears in discharge of his recognizance, and against whom the attorney of the United States does not choose to proceed; and yet the thirty-third section of the judicial act evinces a clear understanding in the legislature that the power to take bail is in possession of the court. If a person shall appear in conformity with his recognizance, and the court passes away without taking any order respecting him, he is discharged. A new recognizance, therefore, or a commitment on the failure to enter into one, is in the nature of an original commitment, and this power has been uniformly exercised.

It is believed to be a correct position, that the power to commit for offences of which it has cognizance is exercised by every court of criminal jurisdiction, and that courts as well as individual magistrates are conservators of the peace. Were it otherwise, the consequence would only be that it would become the duty of the judge to descend from the bench, and, in his character as an individual magistrate, to do that which the court is asked to do. If the court possesses the power, it is certainly its duty to hear the motion which has been made on the part of the United States; for, in cases of the character of that under consideration, its duty and its power are co-extensive with each other. It was observed when the motion was made, and the observation may now be repeated, that the arguments urged on the part of the accused rather prove the motion on the part of the United States unnecessary, or that inconveniencies may arise from it, than the want of a legal right to make it. The first is, that the grand jury being now in session ready to receive an indictment, the attorney for the United States ought to proceed by bill instead of applying to the court, since the only purpose of a commitment is to bring the accused before a grand jury. This statement contains an intrinsic error which destroys its operation. The commitment is not made for the sole purpose of bringing the accused before a grand jury; it is made for the purpose of subjecting him personally to the judgment of the law, and the grand jury is only the first step towards that judgment. If, as has been argued, the commitment was simply to detain the person until a grand jury could be obtained, then its operation would cease on the assembling of a grand jury; but such is not the fact. The order of commitment retains its force while the jury is in session, and if the prosecutor does not proceed, the court is accustomed to retain a prisoner in confinement, or to renew his recognizance to a subsequent term.

The arguments drawn from the general policy of our laws; from the attention which should be bestowed on prosecutions, instituted by special order of the executive; [Volume 5, Page 271] from the peculiar inconveniencies and hardships of this particular case; from the improper effects which inevitably result from this examination, are some of them subjects for the consideration of those who make the motion, rather than of the court; and others go to the circumspection with which the testimony in support of the motion ought to be weighed, rather than to the duty of hearing it.

It has been said that Colonel Burr already stands charged with treason, and that, therefore, a motion to commit him for the same offence is improper. But the fact is not so understood by the court. The application to charge him with treason was rejected by the judge to whom it was made, because the testimony offered in support of the charge did not furnish probable cause for the opinion that the crime had been committed. After this rejection, Colonel Burr stood, so far as respected his legal liability to have the charge repeated, in precisely the same situation as if it had never been made. He appears in court now as if the crime of treason had never before been alleged against him. That it has been alleged, that the government had had time to collect testimony for the establishment of the fact, that an immense crowd of witnesses are attending for the purpose, that the prosecutor in his own judgment has testimony to support the indictment, are circumstances which may have their influence on the motion for a commitment, or on a continuance, but which cannot deprive the attorney for the United States of the right to make his motion. If he was about to send up a bill to the grand jury, he might move that the person he designed to accuse should be ordered into custody, and it would be in the discretion of the court to grant or to reject the motion.

The court perceives and regrets that the result of this motion may be publications unfavorable to the justice and to the right decision of the case; but if this consequence is to be prevented, it must be by other means than by refusing to hear the motion. No man, feeling a correct sense of the importance which ought to be attached by all to a fair and impartial administration of justice, especially in criminal prosecutions, can view, without extreme solicitude, any attempt which may be made to prejudice the public judgment, and to try any person, not by the laws of his country and the testimony exhibited against him, but by public feelings, which may be and often are artificially excited against the innocent as well as the guilty. But the remedy, for a practice not less dangerous than it is criminal, is not to be obtained by suppressing motions which either party may have a legal right to make.

If it is the choice of the prosecutor on the part of the United States to proceed with this motion, it is the opinion of the court that he may open his testimony.

The Founders' Constitution
Volume 5, Amendments V and VI, Document 33
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/amendV-VI_criminal_processs33.html
The University of Chicago Press