In 1874, the U.S. government created the United States Reports, and retroactively numbered older privately-published case reports as part of the new series. As a result, cases appearing in volumes 1–90 of U.S. Reports have dual citation forms; one for the volume number of U.S. Reports, and one for the volume number of the reports named for the relevant reporter of decisions (these are called "nominative reports").
William Cranch
Starting with the 5th volume of U.S. Reports, the Reporter of Decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States was William Cranch. Cranch was Reporter of Decisions from 1801 to 1815, covering volumes 5 through 13 of United States Reports which correspond to volumes 1 through 9 of his Cranch's Reports. As such, the complete citation to, for example, Peyton v. Brooke is 7 U.S. (3 Cranch) 92 (1805).
Justices of the Supreme Court at the time of 7 U.S. (3 Cranch)
The Supreme Court is established by Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution of the United States, which says: "The judicial Power of the United States, shall be vested in one supreme Court . . .". The size of the Court is not specified; the Constitution leaves it to Congress to set the number of justices. Under the Judiciary Act of 1789 Congress originally fixed the number of justices at six (one chief justice and five associate justices).[2] Since 1789 Congress has varied the size of the Court from six to seven, nine, ten, and back to nine justices (always including one chief justice).
When the cases in 7 U.S. (3 Cranch) were decided, the Court comprised these six justices:
In United States v. More, 7 U.S. (3 Cranch) 159 (1805), the Court held it had no jurisdiction to hear appeals from criminal cases in the circuit courts by writs of error. Relying on the Exceptions Clause, the Supreme Court held that Congress's enumerated grants of appellate jurisdiction to the Court operated as an exercise of Congress's power to eliminate all other forms of appellate jurisdiction.
More ensured that the Court's criminal jurisprudence would be limited to writs of error from the state (and later, territorial) courts, habeas petitions, and writs of error from habeas petitions in the circuit courts, and certificates of division and mandamus from the circuit courts. Congress did not grant the Court jurisdiction to hear writs of error from the circuit courts in criminal cases until 1889, for capital crimes, and 1891, for other "infamous" crimes.[3] The Judicial Code of 1911 abolished the circuit courts, transferred the trial of crimes to the district courts, and extended the Supreme Court's appellate jurisdiction to all crimes.[3] But, these statutory grants were construed not to permit writs of error filed by the prosecution, as in More.[4]
Strawbridge v. Curtiss
In Strawbridge v. Curtiss, 7 U.S. (3 Cranch) 267 (1806) the Supreme Court first addressed the question of complete diversity for diversity jurisdiction. In a brief opinion the Court held that for federal diversity jurisdiction, under section 11 of the Judiciary Act of 1789, no party on one side of a suit may be a citizen of the same state as any party on the other side. Therefore, when there are joint plaintiffs or defendants, jurisdiction must be established as to each individual party. That requirement remains acceptable in law as a matter of statutory interpretation, not constitutional command.[5]
Under the Judiciary Act of 1789 the federal court structure at the time comprised District Courts, which had general trial jurisdiction; Circuit Courts, which had mixed trial and appellate (from the US District Courts) jurisdiction; and the United States Supreme Court, which had appellate jurisdiction over the federal District and Circuit courts—and for certain issues over state courts. The Supreme Court also had limited original jurisdiction (i.e., in which cases could be filed directly with the Supreme Court without first having been heard by a lower federal or state court). There were one or more federal District Courts and/or Circuit Courts in each state, territory, or other geographical region.
Bluebook citation style is used for case names, citations, and jurisdictions.
"C.C.D." = United States Circuit Court for the District of . . .
e.g.,"C.C.D.N.J." = United States Circuit Court for the District of New Jersey
"D." = United States District Court for the District of . . .
^ abBrent D. Stratton, Criminal Law: The Attenuation Exception to the Exclusionary Rule: A Study in Attenuated Principle and Dissipated Logic, 75 J. Crim. L. & Criminology 139, 139 n.1 (1984).
^Rossman, 1990, at 524 n.19 (citing United States v. Sanges, 144 U.S. 310 (1892).
^State Farm Fire & Casualty Co. v. Tashire, 386 U.S. 523, 530–31 (1967), saying of Strawbridge, “Chief Justice Marshall there purported to construe only 'The words of the act of Congress,' not the Constitution itself. And in a variety of contexts this Court and the lower courts have concluded that Article III poses no obstacle to the legislative extension of federal jurisdiction, founded on diversity, so long as any two adverse parties are not co-citizens."
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