Volume 3 — Wheeler's Criminal Cases

<p>If an attorney write and publish strictures on an opinion delivered in court, with a view to prejudice a cause pending in such court, or the court to which it may be remanded for trial, such publishing is a contempt, for which he may be stricken from the roll of attorneys.</p> <p>The judgment of the court to which the contempt is offered is final; and though the proceedings be summary, is no infringement of the 11th section of the Bill of Rights.</p> <p>The power of courts to punish for contempts by summary judgment. existed before, and since, Magna Charta, from which the said section in our Bill of Rights is copied; consequently subject to like constructions.</p> <p>Under the act of 1815, ch. 95. the supreme court can silence and disqualify an attorney; and he can be restored no otherwise than by such court revoking the sentence.</p> <p>A license subsequently procured front circuit judges pending the judgment of disqualification, is a void license.</p> <p>The grant of it being in effect a reversal of the judgment of a superior tribunal, was illegal, and it will not be allowed inferior tribunals to do by circuity what they cannot do directly.</p>

<p>Assault and Battery. Rights of Master and Seaman. ¡</p>

<p>ASSAULT AND BATTERY.</p>

<p>The cause came on pursuant to the adjournment.</p>

<p>Libel.</p> <p>[The following unanimous opinion of the Court of Appeals, on the doctrine of Libel, was delivered on the 21st of January, 1811. At a special meeting of the gentlemen of the Charleston Bar, held on the same day, it was Resolved, That the Attorney General should be requested to apply to Judge. Waties, for a copy of the Opinion, with leave to publish it, as containing a truly legal and constitutional view of the doctrine it embraces. To this request the Judge acceded, and we are thus enabled to submit to the public consideration a sound and eloquent decision, on a subject of the highest public and private importance.]</p>

<p>Retarding the Passagé of the Mail, &c.</p> <p>If the ordinances of the city of Philadelphia are in collision with an act of Congress, the former must give way. The laws of Congress, made in pursuance of the constitution of the United States, are the supreme laws of the land, any thing in the constitution or laws of any state notwithstanding.</p> <p>Driving a Carriage through a populous and crowded street in the city, at such a rate or in such a manner, as to endanger the safety of the inhabitants,' is an indictable offence at common law, and amounts to a breach of the peace ; a constable is authorized, without a warrant, to prevent the peace from being thus broken. The act of Congress, prohibiting the stoppage of the mail, is not to be so construed as to prevent the arrest of the driver of a carriage in which the mail is carried, when he is driving through a crowded city at such a rate as to endanger the lives of the in-inhabitants.</p>

<p>Rights of Citizenship.</p> <p>Whether a native citizen of the United States, who resides in a foreign country, does not, by such residence, forfeit his citizenship ? Such a person may, under the act passed 31st December, 1702, command a registered vessel of the United States, without, her right to the payment of domestic duties being affected thereby ; but under the same act, he cannot be the owner of a vessel of the United States.</p> <p>A citizen of the United States cannot throw off his allegiance, with • ont a law authorizing the same.</p> <p>Any irregularities committed by the jury relative to their verdicts ought to have been corrected in the court below, and they cannot be examined by writ of error.</p>

<p>Murder.</p> <p>If one assuming the character of a physician, through ignorance-administer medicine to his patient with an honest intention, and expectation of a cure, but which causes the death of the patient, he is not guilty of felonious homicide.</p>

<p>Habeas Corpus.</p> <p>An agreement between the masterof a vessel and a passenger, that the latter shall remain on hoard until he has paid his freight, is lawful. He cannot plead as a set off, that the master did not furnish the provisions which he stipulated. These are mutual covenants, on which each party may have an action.</p>

<p>Trespass, civil and maritime.--Damages laid at $35,000.-</p> <p>The like.-$40,000. - -Damages</p> <p>The like.—Damages $25,000.</p>

<p>assault and battery.</p>

<p>D. S. Jones, Griffin, Wells and Emmet, for captors.</p> <p>Golden, D. B. Ogden, and Harrison, for claimants</p>

<p>Appeal.</p> <p>Opinion of Chief Justice Savage, upon an appeal from the decision of the Chancellor, in the case of the steam-boat Olive Branch— delivered in the Court of Errors, February 28, 1825.</p>

<p>Indictment for Coining, &c.</p>

<p>Petit Larceny.</p>

<p>j_¡1EEL IB</p> <p>[Slaves captured in time of war, cannot be libelled as prize: nor will the District Court of the United States consider them as prisoners of war. . ,</p> <p>The Court considers the disposition of them as a matter of.state, in whiehit is not fit that the judiciary should interfere.]</p>