KRA, Plaintiff in Error, vs. REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA, Defendant in Error.
[January Term, A. D. 1905.]
Appeal from the Court of Quarter Sessions and Common Pleas,
Montserrado County.
Piracy.
In Admiralty, it is proper for the trial court to order the issue of a monition, after a libel, charging a prisoner with a crime, has been filed and the case called for trial.
Because depositions are unsealed is not sufficient ground to rule them out, where it does, not appear that they have been tampered with.
This case was heard in the admiralty jurisdiction of the Court of Quarter Sessions and Common Pleas of Montserrado County, at its May term, A. D. 1904. From the record it appears that a libel was filed against the libellee, now plaintiff in error, by the libellant, now defendant in error, in the December term of said court, A. D. 1903, charging the said plaintiff in error with piratically taking from the person of one Capt. Mauser, master of the wrecked ship “Lulu Bohlen,” five hundred and sixty pounds sterling.
The case was called up for hearing on the 14th day of April, when the counsel for the plaintiff in error moved that the case be dismissed because no monition had issued, nor had an order to issue same been made by the judge. The court below refused to dismiss the suit for the reasons alleged, and ordered the monition to be issued. The case was postponed until the May session of the court, when a decree was made against the libellee, now plaintiff in error. To this decree, as well as to the several other rulings made in said case by the court below, the libellee, now plaintiff in error, excepted, and moved the case on a writ of error, before this tribunal of last resort, for rehearing.
The first exception taken, as appears from the assignment of errors, is to the ruling of the court below upon the motion to dismiss the suit and the subsequent order of the judge for the issuing of the monition.
This court would remark, that in admiralty the court of original jurisdiction may exercise greater powers than what are generally allowed by the arbitrary and technical rules of the common law. This rule was exhaustively considered by this court in the case, Republic of Liberia against W. C. Dennis, determined in 1898. In that case the identical point presented for our consideration in the first assignment, was submitted, and this court handed down the following rule, quoted from Benedict’s Admiralty, as its opinion on this point: “In admiralty practice the law allows a greater scope of privilege to parties than in common law practice. In admiralty the court is bound to determine the case submitted to its cognizance, upon equitable principles and according to the rules of natural justice. The grand object of doing justice between the parties is superior to technical rules; and where the strictest practice of the English common law, or the civil law, would turn a party out of court, or defer, or prevent justice, by considering an arbitrary rule of proceedings as paramount to all other considerations, the American admiralty finds in the educated reason and cultivated discretion of the court the means of defeating chicanery, rectifying mistakes, supplying defects, and of reconstructing his case, as far as necessary, without the loss of such progress as he may have already made. In admiralty interests of great moment are involved to the nation, whether in respect to its own citizens or to aliens. It upholds the nation’s majesty and credit. Largely it affects its revenue, which is its life-blood, and that which enables it to exist and to maintain its independence, and to develop its growth and afford to it the means of support and protection to its citizens; therefore the law will not allow justice to be defeated for the want of technicalities or mere form, or slight, non-essential omissions.”
Here in the case under consideration the ship of a friendly state, with whom we hold treaties of friendship and of commerce, had stranded at a remote point on our coast and the master had been piratically robbed of a large sum of money. The felon was discovered and taken into custody and the machinery of the court put in motion to punish the offence. A libel charging the prisoner with the crime was properly filed and the case called up for trial. But at this stage of the proceedings it was discovered that no process had been issued, nor had the judge below made the necessary order in the premises. According to the strict rules of the common law, such an irregularity could not be cured in the same suit and the motion to dismiss would have been well-founded. But, as we have already observed, the rule is otherwise in admiralty proceedings, where “the grand object of doing justice between the parties is superior to technicalities in form, or other slight omissions.” Supposing the judge below had adhered to the contentions of the learned counsel for the libellee, now plaintiff in error, and dismissed the suit, and supposing before process could be issued the accused should have absconded and his discovery became impossible, is it difficult to imagine the ill-effect such a result would have produced upon the minds of the tribes scattered along our coast, where the wrecks of foreign merchantmen are frequently occurring, and whose piratical acts and maltreatment to the passengers and crew of these wrecks have more than once been made the subject of international inquiry.
Would it be illogical to presume that the non-punishment of the accused after guilt had been confessed and become generally known along the Kroo coast, would have encouraged the practice of piracy upon wrecks at remote points along our coast, by confirming the impression already held by the natives that wrecks and wreckage are bona fide the property of the tribes near whose town they happen to occur, and that the law of civilized states will not punish one who converts private property to his personal use under such circumstances?
It would seem in this particular case, that even if there had not existed that rule of law in admiralty practice, upon which the learned judge acted in refusing to dismiss the suit, he would have been justified in the course he adopted by the stern reasons of public policy and transparent justice.
We proceed next to consider the second assignment, which is taken to the court’s admitting as evidence depositions taken by a justice of the peace, in a case of larceny, against the plaintiff in error, for the same act which constitutes the subject of this suit. The grounds laid are: (r) “That the said depositions were not taken by the deponent nor the Justice of the Peace, but by his clerk”; and (2) “that they were presented unsealed.” As to the first ground, we fail to see the reason of it. It appears from the second, that the depositions were properly taken before a Justice of the Peace and that they were signed in the legal form by the deponent. The mere fact that they were recorded by the magistrate’s clerk and not by the magistrate himself, cannot impeach their genuineness and validity; especially so when, as we have said, they were signed by the witnesses who made the statements, and a jurat in legal form signed by the Justice of the Peace before whom they were taken, which is prima facie evidence of their validity.
As to the second ground, this court is of opinion that the simple fact that the depositions were presented at the trial unsealed, but which fact is unconnected with any circumstance tending to show that they had been tampered with, or that they had in any respect been altered, was not, in the opinion of this court, sufficient ground for the court below to have ruled them out. It should be strictly observed, however, that the exception on this point as laid in the assignment of error, is to the taking and non-sealing of the depositions and not as to the legal right to use in evidence ex parte depositions in a case of this nature. This not having been raised in the pleadings and assignments, the court does not feel itself bound to pass upon it and therefore reserves opinion thereon.
The third assignment is taken to the decree of the court below, delivered in the premises on the 25th day of May, 1904, in which the libellee, now plaintiff in error, was adjudged guilty of piracy, and the following punishment inflicted ; namely, “That the libellee, now plaintiff in error, will make restitution of the stolen money £56o, less the amount recovered by the government, and forfeit and pay to the government two hundred dollars; and failing to pay said amount, he shall be imprisoned in the common jail, with hard labor in chains, sufficiently long to pay said amount at the rate of six dollars per month.”
Summing up the evidence produced at the trial, this court finds that the conclusions of the judge below upon the facts submitted are well and substantially founded. Independently of the depositions, whose admission as evidence was contested by the learned counsel for the libellee, now plaintiff in error, a strong and cogent case was made out by the prosecution, from the oral testimony put in evidence. But this court is obliged to announce that after a careful study of the statutes controlling this case it has failed to discover the law upon which the court below predicated that part of its decree relative to the punishment inflicted. Beyond a controversy the learned judge below mistook the law on this point.
In an act defining piracy, found on the 145thpage of the Compiled Statutes of Liberia, in Sec. 11 it is stated that “In all cases of conviction in any of the courts in this Republic of any of those crimes denominated by the law as piracy, to which no specific penalty has been assigned, and in which murder has not been committed, the penalty shall be a fine of not less than five hundred dollars, and in default of payment, imprisonment for a term of five years, but in cases in which murder has been committed the penalty shall be imprisonment for life.” This we understand to be the law controlling the judgment in this case.
This court therefore, under the authority of the statute above cited, reverses the decree of the court below, so far as it relates to the punishment, and will now proceed to make the decree the court below ought to have made.
This court decrees that Kra, the plaintiff in error, is guilty of piracy and that he is sentenced to pay a fine of three thousand dollars. Failing to pay said fine, he shall be imprisoned in the common jail for a term of five years. The clerk of this court is hereby authorized to issue a mandate to the judge below, informing him of this decree.