Biscoe v. State

Robinson, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The plaintiff in error, was indicted in the Circuit Court for St. Mary’s County, for the murder of a citizen of Maryland, alleged to have been committed on the Potomac river, opposite said county; and the main question in this appeal, is whether the Circuit Court of that county had jurisdiction of the offence ? This jurisdiction is denied on the ground that the boundary of St. Mary’s County as defined by the Act of 1695 (ch. 13) runs with the shore of the Potomac, hut does not include any part of the river itself. At the same time, it is admitted that the Courts of that county have from the passage of that Act to the present time, a period of nearly ²⁹⁶ two hundred years, exercised jurisdiction bve'r-oflfences committed on said river, and that its exercise 'is'now, for the first time, questioned.

If the objection thus made be well founded, it seems strange, to say the least, that it should during all this time have escaped the attention of all the lawyers and Judges of both the Provincial and State Governments. We do not, however, rest our decision in favor of the jurisdiction claimed by the State 'on this ground. The error which runs' through the’ argument of the counsel for the prisoner is the assumption that the Circuit Court was without jurisdiction in the premises, because the boundary line of St. Mary’s County runs with, but does not include, the Potomac river. Now-by the charter granted to Lord Baltimore the Potoma^river belongs to the State of Maryland, and over it the State has always exercised jurisdiction, except so far as the exercise of its jurisdiction was restricted by the compact of 1785 with the State of Virginia.

The counties of the State are but territorial divisions established for public and local purposes connected with the administration of the government, and the Circuit'Courts of the several counties lying on the Potomac river, as Courts of record having original jurisdiction, exercise a common law jurisdiction over offences committed on said river, opposite the shores of such counties. As such Courts, they exercise all the common law powers of the Court of King’s Bench in England, except so far as such powers may have been modified by the change in our form of government, or restricted by constitutional or legislative enactment. In the earlier years of the Provincial Government the criminal jurisdiction of the County Courts was, it is true, limited to the trial of certain offences, and the Provincial Court, afterwards known as the General Court, exercised exclusive jurisdiction in capital cases; but so far back as 1773, concurrent jurisdiction with tbe Provincial Court over all crimes and offences was conferred on the County Courts. And then by the subsequent Act of ²⁹⁷ 1801, chap. 74, sec. 37, the concurrent jurisdiction of the General Court over criminal cases was taken away, and from that time to the present the County Courts and the Circuit Courts, their successors, have exercised exclusive criminal jurisdiction.

And the Potomac river being part of the State, and subject therefore to its jurisdiction, the Circuit Courts of the several counties bordering on said river, as common law Courts, exercise criminal jurisdiction over offences committed on said river opposite such counties. And the exercise of this jurisdiction was recognized by the Legislature in ratifying the compact made with the State of Virginia, for although jurisdiction was in a certain class of offences conceded to