Jackson v. State

Fowler, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. The traverser was indicted in the Criminal Court of Baltimore for murder. Subsequent to the finding of this indictment, Judge Dobler was assigned by the Supreme Bench of Baltimore City to that Court and Judge Stock-bridge was by the same authority also assigned to the same-Court with a jury to sit separately from Judge Dobler for the January term and until further ordered, as an additional Judge for the said Court. It will thus be seen that the-Criminal Court of Baltimore has been in effect divided by the Supreme Bench into two parts, which for convenience-have been designated part i and part 2.

It is contended by the' appellant, the traverser, that no warrant can be found in the Constitution for such division, while the State contends that by the true construction of section 32 of Article 4 of the Constitution of Maryland, each part or the Judge holding the same has all the j usi-sdiction and power conferred upon the Criminal Court of Baltimore by the-Constitution of this State. The question thus presented is the only one before us on this appeal. We will briefly consider it, having already announced our conclusion, namely,, that the trial of the traverser had in Part 2 of the Criminal Court before Judge Stockbridge and a jury was quite as-regular and that the judgment rendered against him is. quite as conclusive as if he had been tried and convicted in. the Criminal Cohrt itself. In order to justify this conclusion it seems to be only necessary to examine section 32 of Article 4 of the Constitution.

By this section it is provided that the Judge or Judges, assigned to each of the Courts in Baltimore City “ may sit either separately or together in the trial of cases”—and that when “ so assigned ” to the several Courts- such Judge: ¹⁹³ or Judges shall have all the powers and exercise all the jurisdiction which may belong to the Court so being held. It would seem to be a perfectly clear construction upon the language itself, to say that the Judges “ so assigned ” to the Criminal Court may sit either together in one Court-room, with one jury, or separately in different rooms, each with a jury and with all the power and jurisdiction they possessed when they sit together. But when we know, as we do, that the object was to provide more Courts as well as more Judges in order that more cases could be disposed of, it becomes, we think, apparent that the plain meaning of this section is that the Supreme Bench should have power,, whenever necessary in its judgment the public interest requires it, not to create new Courts, but to divide into-parts the Courts already created by the Constitution—and to assign to such sub-divisions the additional Judges elected and to be hereafter elected under section 39 as amended by the Act of 1892. Such has been the construction given to this section ot the Constitution by the Supreme Bench of Baltimore for several years.

And we believe it was generally understood' when the constitutional amendment of 1892 was adopted,, that its object was to facilitate the trial of cases'in Baltimore-by increasing the number of Judges without the additional expense of new Courts and clerks. It was urged with earnestness and ingenuity that a Court is necessarily a unit and can only be divided into parts by an amendment or express provision of the Constitution. Irr answer to this argument it may be said first, that the Baltimore County Court, prior to 1851, sat in Baltimore not as a unit, but in several parts. The late Mr. Crisfield, a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1851, said : “You have, by a practice which has grown up in the city of Baltimore, to meet the exigencies of business, Baltimore-County Court severed into three distinct tribunals.

You-have one Judge in one room performing the common law-jurisdiction ; you have another in another room presiding- ¹⁹⁴ over appeal cases ; and another in a third room, transacting the chancery business.” Nor is it unusual even under the system now prevailing in the circuits outside of Baltimore to see a similar division of the Circuit Courts in some of them when there is a press of business. In one room one of the Judges may be sitting trying criminal or civil cases with or without a jury—and in another room in the same building another Judge of the same Court may be holding a session to dispose of equity business. As we have seen, this practice prevailed