Lowe v. Kansas/Dissent Brown

by Henry Billings Brown

United States Supreme Court

163 U.S. 81

Lowe  v.  Kansas

Mr. Justice BROWN, dissenting.

Did the statute of Kansas require broadly that the prosecutor in every criminal case should be held liable for costs, I should have felt much less hesitation in acceding to the views of the majority of the court, since the name of the prosecutor can easily be ascertained, either from the original complaint, by an inspection of the record, or from the testimony upon the trial, and I have no doubt that it is within the competency of the legislature to make him responsible for such costs.

But the difficulty with statute in question is that it makes him responsible only upon the contingency that the prosecution was instituted without probable cause, and from malicious motives, and authorizes the jury to find this fact from the testimony introduced upon the trial of the principal case, without giving the prosecutor any opportunity of rebutting such testimony, by proving that the prosecution was instituted in good faith, and with probable cause to believe that the defendant was guilty. Such evidence would be obviously incompetent in the principal case, since the very testimony that would tend to show probable cause and acquit him of malicious motives would also tend to the predjudice of the defendant, and would be inadmissible against him. For example, suppose A. should make a complaint against B. for larceny, and upon the trial, either by reason of the death, illness, or absence of his witnesses, or through the efforts of B. and his friends to spirit them away, he might be unable to offer any testimony against him, of course B. would be acquitted, and A. would be adjudged guilty of having instituted the prosecution maliciously and without probable cause, notwithstanding that he might have been able to show that he had made the complaint upon the statement of these witnesses that they had seen B. take the property, and had afterwards seen it in his possession; such testimony would obviously not have been admissible upon the trial B., since it would not only have been hearsay, but would have seriously prejudiced him in the eyes of the At the same time, it would be obviously necessary to the exoneration of A.

It is a fatal objection to the statute that it undertakes to settle in one trial the rights of two parties to a criminal cause whose interests are adverse, and to try two distinct and disconnected issues, viz. the guilt of the principal defendant and the innocence of the prosecutor, upon testimony applicable to but one of such issues. It seems to me entirely clear that, if the prosecutor can be subjected to a judgment for costs and to imprisonment without being able to lay before the jury the testimony which would tend to his acquittal, he is deprived of his liberty and property without due process of law, within the meaning of the fourteenth amendment.

Notwithstanding that this was a prosecution for libel, in which it might be expected that the motives of the prosecutor would appear more clearly than in ordinary prosecutions, the statute appears to have worked a peculiar hardship upon the defendant. § stated in the opinion of the court, after the verdict was rendered, Lowe moved to set the same aside so far as it bore against him, upon the ground that he had not been heard, and could not be heard, in his own defense, and also moved in arrest of judgment upon the same ground; but the court denied both motions, and, upon appeal to the supreme court, that court held, following in that particular State v. Zimmerman, 31 Kan. 85, 1 Pac. 257, that under section 326 of the Criminal Code, above cited, the court had no power to set aside a verdict of acquittal, and that it was equally powerless to set aside the verdict against the prosecutor, inasmuch as it was a part of the verdict of acquittal. In delivering the opinion, the court says: 'The force of another universal practice of courts everywhere ought to be adverted to, and that is that, when a jury returns a verdict of not guilty in a criminal case, the trial court has no power to set it aside or modify it in any respect. These findings against the prosecuting witness were a part of a verdict of a jury in a criminal case, wherein express power by statutory enactment is given a jury to determine both the law and the facts. The trial court has no power to interfere with that verdict in any prejudicial respect, and this court is as powerless as the court below.' In neither the principal opinion nor in the opinion upon motion for a rehearing was there any intimation that the prosecutor had been or could be heard in his own defense, notwithstanding his whole case was rested upon that ground.

It results, then, that, under the construction given by the supreme court to this statute, the verdict and judgment against the prosecutor, however unjust it may be, is one which no court has power to set aside, because it is a part of the verdict of acquittal of the defendant in the principal action, and the court cannot set aside one part of the verdict without setting aside the whole. If any further argument were needed to satisfy one of the great injustice of this statute, it would seem that this construction supplied it.

The unnecessary hardship of the statute is the more manifest when compared with certain sections of the Revised Statutes of the United States, having a similar object. Thus, by section 970, when, in certain prosecutions instituted by a collector of customs or other officer, judgment is rendered for the claimant, but it appears to the court that there was reasonable cause for the seizure, the court shall cause the proper certificate thereof to be entered, and the claimant shall not be entitled to costs, nor the prosecutor be liable to suit. In such case the certificate is granted or refused by the court upon a hearing of both parties subsequent to the trial of the main issue, and upon motion of the United States for such certificate. Averill v. Smith, 17 Wall. 82; U.S. v. Abatoir Place, 106 U.S. 160, 1 Sup. Ct. 169; U.S. v. Frerichs, 16 Blatchf. 547, Fed. Cas. No. 15,166; The City of Mexico, 25 Fed. 924.

A similar procedure is contemplated by section 975, making the informer of plaintiff in a penal statute liable for costs, unless he be an officer of the United States authorized to commence such prosecution, and the court, at the trial in open court, certifies upon the record what was reasonable cause for commencing the same. So, also, by section 989, it is made the duty of the court to certify that there was probable cause for certain acts done by the collector or other officer, under which it has been decided that the certificate may be granted by another judge than the one before whom the verdict was rendered, and after an execution has issued, as well as before. Cox v. Barney, 14 Blatchf. 289, Fed. Cas. No. 3,300. In all these cases a separate finding by the court is evidently contemplated.

Indeed, in section 327 of the Criminal Procedure of Kansas, immediately following the section by authority of which judgment was entered in this case, it is provided that 'if a person charged with a felony shall be discharged by the officer taking his examination, or if recognized or committed for any such offense, and no indictment or information be preferred against him, the cost shall be paid by the prosecuting witness, unless the court shall find that there was probable cause for instituting the prosecution, and that the same was not instituted for malicious motives.' This section is apparently not obnoxious to the objection above made, since it contemplates a hearing by the court upon the question of probable cause and the motive for the prosecution.

In State v. Ensign, 11 Neb. 529, 10 N. W. 449, the supreme court of Nebraska, construing a statute similar to the one in question, held that the legislature had exceeded its power. 'The mere failure,' said the court, 'to prove the charge made in a complaint, is not conclusive evidence of the want of probable cause or of malice. A party may be convinced of the existence of a tippling or gambling shop at a certain place, or of other means by which the morals of the community are corrupted or debased, and yet upon the trial, from the peculiar or secret nature of the business, may be unable to prove the charge. Does such a case, upon the trial, assume the form of a contest between the accused and the accuser as to which shall be imprisoned? We think not.'

I do not think it constitutional to so frame a criminal law as to make it incumbent upon the prosecutor to enter a complaint at the peril of being mulcted in costs in case the prosecution was malicious, without giving him an opportunity of showing that the complaint was made in good faith, and with probable cause to believe that the defendant was guilty.

For these reasons, I am unable to concur in the opinion of the court.