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History of the Supreme Court
of Judicature 1691-1847 Supreme Court in the Colonial Period On May 6, 1691, the New York Assembly passed an act establishing a Supreme Court of Judicature. The bench of the Supreme Court consisted of a chief justice and two (after 1758, three) associate or puisne justices who were appointed by the governor. The Supreme Court of Judicature, or Supreme Court, was the colony's highest court of common law, with both original and appellate jurisdiction. The court exercised origiinal jurisdiction over major criminal cases, over civil actions in which the amount deanded was more than twenty pounds, and over all actions concerning title to real property. The Supreme Court did not, however have exclusive jurisdiction over these types of cases; all could also be tried in the county courts.[1] The Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction emraced all the lower courts. Proceedings were transferred to the Supreme Court by writs of error, habeas corpus, and certiorari, and by warrant. Apeals from the Supreme Court were allowed in civil cases involving more than 100 pounds (after 1753 the amount was 300 pounds). These appeals were made to the royal governor and his council sitting as a court for the correction of errors and appeals. The court of last resort was the Privy Council, which met in london and reviewed only cases involving a demand for more than 300 pounds sterling (after 1753, 500 pounds).[2] After 1704 the Supreme Court held four terms a year in New York City. A few civil cases of great difficulty and most major criminal cases were tried by the Supreme Court during its regular sittings (terms). Most civil cases were tried in the counties, pursuant to a 1693 act that authorized the justices to hold circuit courts at least once a year in each county for trials of civil and criminal cases.[3] A justice holding a circuit court was also empowered to hold a court of oyer and terminer, a criminal court with jurisdiction over felonies. All judgments in civil cases tried either in the circuit courts or the Supreme Court terms were signed and filed by the clerk of the Supreme Court in New York City.[4] Today, most of the extant records of the colonial Supreme Court of Judicature are in the custody of the New York County Clerk, who is also clerk of the modern State Supreme Court.[5] The 1691 judicature act gave the Supreme Court jurisdiction over "all pleas, civil, criminal, and mixed, as fully and amply to all intents and purposes whatsoever, as the Courts of King's Bench, Common Pleas and Exchequer."[6] The New York Supreme Court, therefore, combined the jurisdictions of three English courts. The Supreme Court took its authority to try or review criminal cases from the Court of King's Bench, which had jurisdiction over "pleas of the crown" that is, criminal cases. The Court of Kings Bench also tried ordinary civil actions to recover debts and personal property. These actions were, in earlier times, brought exclusively in the Court of Common Pleas. During the sixteenth century the Court of Kings Bench acquired jurisdiction over civil actions through use of a writ ordering the arrest of a defendant on a fictitious criminal charge. The Supreme Court derived its jurisdiction over the quasi-criminal actions of trespass and its various offshoots from this source, (These and other "forms of action" are discussed in Appendix A.) Like the Court of King's Bench, the New York Supreme Court issued writs of error, by which judgments in lower courts of record were removed to the higher court for review. The Supreme Court similarly employed the writ of certiorari to review criminal convictions in courts held by justices of the peace. The New York Supreme Court took some of its jurisdiction from the English Court of Common Pleas, which was a court of civil jurisdiction. This jurisdiction included the real actions, concerning title to or possession of real property, and the mixed actions, bought to recover damages for injury to or dispossession of real property. From the English Court of Exchequer the Supreme Court took its jurisdiction over cases in law or equity involving debts to the crown, which could be either real debts or fictitious grounds for private suits. The colonial Supreme Court only infrequently sat as a Court of Exchequer.[7] The source of the Supreme Court's authority was disputed. New Yorkers claimed that acts of their Assembly and the common law of England defined the jurisdiction and procedure of the court. The judicature act of 1691 was in fact renewed by the Assembly for a year or two at a time through 1699. Thereafter the royal governors denied that the Assembly had any authority over the jurisdiction and structure of the major courts. Instead, the governor and his council promulgated ordinances, the first dating from 1704, to establish and regulate the Supreme Court. Acts of the Assembly dealt only with local justices of the peace and with procedural matters. The English common law became part of New York's legal system despite the objections of the royal governors. Common-law procedure and forms of documents, modified and simplified to fit local needs, came into general use in New York during the early decades of the eighteenth century. The provincial bench and bar cited English cases as though they were part of New York's law. Tn fact, no colony followed common law procedure more closely. This profoundly influenced New York's courts, and court records, until the middle of the nineteenth century.[8] |
The Supreme Court of Judicature, or Supreme Court was the colony's highest court of common law. The Supreme Court had jurisdiction over "all pleas, civil, criminal, and mixed." The English common law because part of new York's legal system....In fact, no colony followed common law procedure more closely. |
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Note 1: On the court's origins and early years see Paul M. Hamlin and Charles E. Baker, Supreme Court of Judicature of the Province of New York, 1691-1704, 3 vols. (New York: 1945-47; reissued 1959); Martin L. Budd, "Law in Colonial New York: The Legal System of 1691" Harvard Law Review, 80 (1967), 1757-72, reprinted in Courts and Law in Early New York: Selected Essays, ed. Leo Hershkowitz and Milton M. Klein (Port Washington: 1978), pp. 7-18; and Herbert A. Johnson, "The Advent of Common Law in Colonial New York", in Selected Essays: Law and Authority in Colonial America, ed. George A. Billias (Barre, Mass.: ca. 1965), pp. 74-87, reprinted in Johnson, Essays in New York Colonial Legal History (Westport, Conn.: 1981), pp. 37-54. A review of New York's colonial courts is found in William Smith, Jr., The History of the Province of New-York, ed. Michael Kammen (Cambridge, Mass.: 1972), vol. 1, pp. 259-72. See Appendix C for a discussion of the lower courts during the early nineteenth century. Note 2: Joseph H. Smith, Appeals to the Privy Council from the American Plantations (New York: 1950), pp. 84-85, 220-22, 390-412, 668. Hamlin and Baker, Supreme Court of Judicature, vol. 1, pp.424-38. Julius Goebel and T. Raymond Naughton, Law Enforcement in Colonial New York: A Study in Criminal Procedure (New York: 1944), pp. 238-84. Note 3: The circuit courts operated under the English nisi prius system. A writ to a sheriff ordering him to empanel a jury stated that the jurors must appear at the next term of the Supreme Court in New York City, "unless before" (nisi prius) a circuit court should sit in his county. It always did, saving jurors, witnesses, and attorneys a long journey. Note 4: Hamlin and Baker, Supreme Court of Judicature, vol. 1. On court procedure see Herbert A. Johnson, "Civil Procedure in John Jay's New York," American Journal of Legal History, 11(1967), 69-80, reprinted in Johnson, Essays, pp. 159-70. A discussion of the colonial Supreme Court's business in the l69Os and 1750s is Deborah Rosen, "Civil Practice in Colonial New York: The Supreme Court of Judicature in Transition, 1691-1760," Law and History Review, 5 (1987), 213-47. On business in the criminal courts, see Douglas Greenberg, Crime and Law Enforcement in the Colony of New York, 1691-1776 (Ithaca: 1976). Note 5: See Bibliography for list of Supreme Court of Judicature records in New York City repositories. Greenberg, Crime and Law Enforcement, pp. 236-38, lists locations of superior criminal court records from the colonial period. Note 6: The Colonial Laws of New York from the Year 1664 to the Revolution (Albany: 1894), vol. 1, pp. 226-31. On the jurisdiction of the English common law courts, see John H. Baker, An Introduction to English Legal History, 2d ed. (London: 1979); and Theodore F T. Plucknett, Concise History of the Common Law, 5th ed. (Boston: 1956). Note 7: On the Supreme Court's jurisdiction see Hamlin and Baker, Supreme Court of Judicature, vol. 1, pp. 67-77; Goebel and Naughton, Law Enforcement in Colonial New York, pp. 1-222; and David Graham, A Treatise on the Organization and Jurisdiction of the Courts of Law and Equity, in the State of New-York (New York: 1839), pp. 133-40. On the court's exchequer jurisdiction (the subject of a major political wrangle in the 1730s) see Stanley N. Kat; Newcastle's New York: Anglo-American Politics, 1732-1753 (Cambridge, Mass.: 1968), pp. 64-68. Note 8: Johnson, "Advent of Common Law in Colonial New York," and "English Statutes in Colonial New York," New York History, 58 (1977), 277-96, reprinted in Johnson, Essays in New York Colonial Legal History, pp. 37-54. William B. Stoebuck, "Reception of English Common Law in the American Colonies," William and Mary Law Review, 10 (1968), 393-426. New York's close adherence to the common-law forms is noted by Julius Goebel, The Law Practice of Alexander Hamilton: Documents and Commentary, vol. 1 (New York: 1964). pp. 8-9. | |
 The Historical Society of the Courts of the State of New York | |
