Apapas v. United States

delivered the opinion of the court.

Ten persons described as Indians were, in July 1912, indicted for the murdér of William H. Stanley, a white person, “at, upon and within the limits of a United States Indian Reservation, known as the Cahuilla Indian Reservation, in the County of Riverside, within the Southern Division of the Southern District of California, and within the jurisdiction” of the court below, in violation of §§ 273, 275 and 328 of the Penal Code of 1909. As the result of a trial, four of the accused were acquitted and the six who are plaintiffs in error here were convicted of murder in the second degree and sentenced to ten years imprisonment each, and prosecute this direct writ of error to reverse such conviction and sentence. There are one hundred assignments of error, but before we come to consider them we must dispose of a motion made by the Government to dismiss on the ground that we are without jurisdiction because the case is susceptible only of review by the Circuit Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit.

Undoubtedly, under the general provisions of § 128 of the Judicial Code, power to review is lodged in the Circuit Court of Appeals of the Ninth Circuit, and our authority, if any, to consider the case depends therefore upon whether it comes within the class of cases authorized to be brought directly here from a trial court under the provisions of § 238. By such section in addition to the power conferred to bring directly to this court a question of jurisdiction of a-trial court as a Federal court under the conditions and subject to the limitations stated, the right to directly review in a case of this kind is Conferred only “in any case that involves the construction or application of the Constitution of the United States; in any case in which the constitutionality of any law of the United States, or the validity or construction of any treaty made under its

The settled significance of these provisions we have just pointed out in the case of Itow and Fushimi v. United States, ante, p. 581, just decided, and under the principle there applied it follows that we must determine the right to direct review by ascertaining whether any of the issues enumerated in the provisions of § 238 were below .involved in the cause. Coming to apply this test, only three out of the matters assigned as error have any conceivable relation to the conditions defined by the statute as essential to give the right to a direct review. They are: (1) a challenge of the jurisdiction of the court below;, (2) a contention as to the effect of the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo; (3) an assertion that a constitutional question was involved in the action of the trial court in admitting over objection, testimony as to a statement or admission of Ambrosio Apapas, one of the accused.

As to the first, while it was raised below, it is obviously inadequate to sustain the right to direct review, since under the writ of error the whole case is brought here and not the question of jurisdiction alone, as provided in § 238, and because there is no certificate as to the jurisdiction as required by the section. Maynard v. Hecht, 151 U. S. 324 ; Chappell v. United States, 160 U. S. 499 , 507; Courtney v. Pradt, 196 U. S. 89 , 91, 92.

While the second contention based upon the treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo was raised in the lower court, it in no sense involved the validity or construction of the treaty, and therefore affords no support for the right to directly review. In substance the proposition concerning the treaty is this: that as the ancestors of the accused prior to the termination of the war with Mexico were citizens of Mexico, and became by the treaty citizens of the United States and of the State of California, they were therefore

Under this condition, as pointed out in the case of Itow and Fushimi v. United States, supra, there is no ground whatever for saying that a constitutional right was involved within the exceptions created by § 238 so as to justify disregarding the regular course of judicial procedure by coming directly to this court. The theory upon which it is insisted in argument that the right to direct review results because of the action of the trial court as to the admission of the statement is based upon the premise that because the Constitution guaranteed against compulsory self-incrimination, therefore any objection made to the admission of the statement or confession by the accused necessarily and inherently involved a constitutional right and amounted to a statement of the same although no express mention was made of the Constitution and nothing appears to indicate that any contention whatever existed as to the significance and operation of the Constitution. But this proposition if carried to its legitimate conclusion would embrace every conceivable controversy as to every possible right, since under a constitutional system of government all rights in their last analysis are referable to the safeguards of the Constitution. But we need not further demonstrate the unsoundness of the contention since it is directly in conflict with the . settled rule which we have just re-stated in the Itow and Fushimi Case. And although to go further is superfluous, to prevent misconception or unfounded inferences as to what we decide, we say that we must not be understood as holding that even although it be assumed for the sake of argument that the constitutional guarantee against compulsory self-incrimination would apply to an objection made to the offer in evidence of an admission by an accused person, it would follow that such guarantee would be involved in an objection to the admission in evidence of a confession in

Dismissed for tcant of jurisdiction.