Mr. A. H. Garland and Mr. H. J. May for appellants. Mr. W. W. Dudley and Mr. L. T. Michenor were with them on the brief.

Mr. J. McConnell for appellee.

FULLER, C. J.: This case was decided by the Circuit Court in favor of the State National Bank, upon the facts, and after a patient investigation of the record, with the aid afforded by the arguments and briefs of counsel, we are unable to hold that the Circuit Court erred in the conclusions at which it arrived.

The decree will, therefore, be

Affirmed.

In re MAYFIELD, Petitioner.

ORIGINAL.

No. 15. Original. Submitted April 27, 1891.- Decided May 25, 1891.

A member of the Cherokee Nation, committing adultery with an unmarried woman within the limits of its Territory, is amenable only to the courts of the Nation.

THIS was a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Petitioner averred that on the 19th day of October, 1890, he was indicted in the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Arkansas, and subsequently tried, convicted and

Counsel for Parties.

sentenced to the Detroit House of Correction for three years, for the crime of adultery in the Indian country. He further stated that he was "a Cherokee Indian by blood, and a recog nized member of the Cherokee tribe of Indians, and resided at the time of his arrest for the crime aforesaid, in the said Cherokee Nation, where the said crime is alleged to have been committed; that he has resided in the said Cherokee Nation all his life; that he verily believes that the said District Court had no jurisdiction of his person, he being a Cherokee Indian by blood and a resident of the Cherokee Nation and subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the laws of said nation for the crime aforesaid." The indictment, a copy of which was annexed to the petition, charged that "John Mayfield, on the first day of January, A.D. 1890, at the Cherokee Nation, in the Indian country, within the Western District of Arkansas aforesaid, did commit the crime of adultery with one Mollie Phillips, a white woman, and not an Indian, and a single woman, by him, the said John Mayfield, having then and there carnal knowledge of the body of the said Mollie Phillips, the said John Mayfield being then and there a married man, and then and there having a lawful wife alive other than the said Mollie Phillips, and the said John Mayfield and the said Mollie Phillips not being then and there lawfully married to each other." Upon the hearing it was admitted by the district attorney who tried the case, which admission also had the approval of the District Judge, that upon the trial of the case the evidence showed defendant to be one-fourth Indian by blood, and a citizen of the Cherokee tribe of Indians, and that he was lawfully married to a white woman by blood; and that Mollie Phillips, with whom the crime of adultery was charged to have been committed, was a white woman by blood; and that they both resided in the Illinois District of the Cherokee Nation, Indian Territory, at the time of the commission of the adultery of which Mayfield was convicted."

Mr. Van H. Manning and Mr. Duane E. Fox for the petitioner.

Mr. Assistant Attorney General Maury opposing.

Argument for Defendant in Error.

The answer to the allegation of the want of sufficient cause for the petitioner's detention, is that he is held by virtue of a judgment of the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Arkansas.

If that court had jurisdiction of the crime of adultery of which the petitioner was convicted, it would seem that the return to the rule shows a complete justification for his detention.

By section 533 of the Revised Statutes, the jurisdiction of the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Arkansas was extended to "the country lying west of Missouri and Arkansas, known as the Indian Territory."

But the jurisdiction of this court over the Indian Territory was considerably abridged by the act of Congress of March 1, 1889, 25 Stat. 786, c. 333, § 17, annexing a part of that Territory to the Eastern District of Texas, and the act of January 6, 1883, 22 Stat. 400, c. 13, § 2, annexing another part to the District of Kansas.

It suffices to say that the residue of the Territory left to the jurisdiction of the District Court for the Western District of Arkansas embraces the venue of the crime as laid in the indictment.

The jurisdiction of the court established for the Indian Territory by the act of March 1, 1889, 25 Stat. 783, c. 333, does not interfere with the jurisdiction of the District Court, because the jurisdiction of the former is limited to offences "not punishable by death or by imprisonment at hard labor." See also section 33 of the act of May 2, 1890, 26 Stat. c. 182, pp. 96,

97.

It is true the offence of adultery is punishable "by imprisonment in the penitentiary not exceeding three years," but, inasmuch as a prisoner convicted of this offence may, under the provisions of chapter 9, title 70, of the Revised Statutes, be imprisoned in a penitentiary where hard labor is exacted of all prisoners, it may be said with entire propriety that hard labor is a possible punishment for the crime of adultery. In Ex parte Karstendick, 93 U. S. 396, 399, the court used the following language on this subject: "Where the statute re

Argument for Defendant in Error.

quires imprisonment alone, the several provisions which have just been referred to place it within the power of the court, at its discretion, to order execution of its sentence at a place where labor is exacted as part of the discipline and treatment of the institution or not, as it pleases. Thus, a wider range of punishment is given, and the courts are left at liberty to graduate their sentences so as to meet the ever varying circumstances of the cases which come before them." To the same effect is

the case of In re Mills, 135 U. S. 263.

It cannot be doubted that the Cherokee Nation is within the western district of Arkansas.

It cannot be doubted that the offence of adultery was cognizable by the District Court of the said district.

The court having jurisdiction of the offence, it cannot be doubted that it must be conclusively taken to have had jurisdiction of the prisoner in the absence of any plea filed by him showing that the court had not, for some reason, jurisdiction over him, in accordance with the long established principle laid down in Peacock v. Bell, 1 Saund. 74, that "nothing shall be intended to be out of the jurisdiction of a Superior Court but that which specially appears to be so; and, on the contrary, nothing shall be intended to be within the jurisdiction of an inferior court but that which is so expressly alleged."

In Ex parte Watkins, 3 Pet. 193, 207, Chief Justice Marshall said: "The cases are numerous which decide that the judgments of a court of record having general jurisdiction of the subject, although erroneous, are binding until reversed. It is universally understood that the judgments of the courts of the United States, although their jurisdiction be not shown in the pleadings, are yet binding on all the world; and that this apparent want of jurisdiction can avail the party only on a writ of error. This acknowledged principle seems to us to settle the question now before the court. The judgment of the Circuit Court in a criminal case is of itself evidence of its own legality, and requires for its support no inspection of the indictments on which it is founded. The law trusts that court with the whole subject, and has not confided to this court the power of revising its decisions. We cannot usurp that power

Opinion of the Court.

by the instrumentality of the writ of habeas corpus. The judgment informs us that the commitment is legal, and with that information it is our duty to be satisfied." This would seem to be decisive of the case at bar.

The jurisdiction of the court over the offence is clear. The petitioner appeared before the court, and no doubt pleaded to the indictment, although that does not appear directly, but is clearly inferable. Is it not clear, also, that it must be conclusively presumed that the court had jurisdiction over the person of the petitioner? Galpin v. Page, 18 Wall. 350, 366.

The District Court is a court of general criminal jurisdiction over that part of the Indian Territory where the offence was committed, and all presumptions are to be indulged for the purpose of supporting its judgments. Rhode Island v. Massachusetts, 12 Pet. 667, 718, 719.

MR. JUSTICE BROWN delivered the opinion of the court.

Petitioner was indicted for a violation of the third section of the act of March 3, 1887, 24 Stat. 635, c. 397, entitled "An act to amend an act entitled 'An act to amend section fifty-three hundred and fifty-two of the Revised Statutes of the United States, in reference to bigamy, and for other purposes,' approved March twenty-second, eighteen hundred and eightytwo." The section reads as follows: "That whoever commits adultery shall be punished by imprisonment in the penitentiary not exceeding three years; and when the act is committed between a married woman and a man who is unmarried, both parties to such act shall be deemed guilty of adultery; and when such act is committed between a married man and a woman who is unmarried, the man shall be deemed guilty of adultery." Rev. Stat. sec. 5352, to which this is an amendment, provided for the punishment of bigamy when committed "in a Territory, or other place over which the United States have exclusive jurisdiction." But the applicability of the act of March, 1887, to this case is apparent from sec. 2145, title 28, chapter 4, entitled "Government of Indian country," which reads as follows: "Except as to crimes the punishment of