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332 TRIAL OF JOHN W. WEBSTER.
grounds: Upon the general principles applicable to all process which
has a return day,-whether it be returned to the Court from which it
issued, or from one Court to another. The precept from the Municipal
Court, although returned to that Court, when served becomes a part
of the record, and comes here as the operative power which transfers
the accused. The entry, therefore, should be at a fixed day certain.
So, under this order, an entry here at any time during the November
term would be a compliance with the order. The law does not and
will not permit a party to depend, for this length of time, upon the
pleasure of the officer whose duty it is to make the entry, before he can
know whether the entry is or is not to be made. The fact that this
power will not be abused is no answer.
Again, the law requires an order which can and must take effect
at all events; not one which may or may not be accidentally effectual.
An order, dependent for its vitality upon the contingency that this
Court shall continue its session from day to day until the entry can be
made, is not such as the law requires. Public justice, as well as private
right, may be endangered, if an order of entry is to be sustained which
might prove inoperative without the default of any one. The Municipal
Court, under the circumstances connected with this order, if it should
fail of effect, might not be authorized to make a second order to cure
the accident which had produced such failure. In Morris v. State, 1
Blackford, Ind. Rep., the Court say that the judgment upon a verdict
must be certain. Why not require the same certainty in any and every
other judgment?-Why not in a judgment which operates, when made
known, to transfer the accusation and the party accused of murder,
from one Court to another? If certainty in any legal proceeding is
ever required, it is here, in a case of life or death. Statutes must be
construed so as to have a reasonable effect. The most reasonable and
beneficial construction must be adopted. It is to be presumed that the
legislature so intended: this is familiar law. It is reasonable and bene-
ficial to a party accused, that he should be informed, and know to a
certainty, when and where he is to meet the accusation.
Again, I submit that the statute in its result, in its purpose and in
its character, contemplates that the entry shall be made at a day
certain. These principles are recognized by this Court, in Carlisle
v. Commonwealth, 7 Met. 470; and in Commonwealth v. Hardy, 2 Mass.,
303. So also they are recognized in cases in relation to the return of
awards.-Southworth v. Bradford 5 Mass., 524; Gerrish v. Morss, 2
Pick., 625. Mott v. Anthony, 5 Mass., 489. In the case of Carlisle v.
Commonwealth, a party convict appealed to an adjourned term of this
Court, and recognized to enter his appeal, with which he failed to
compy. A suit was instituted upon the recognizance, and successfully
resisted upon the ground that it was void,-inasmuch as the statute
applicable to the case then before the Court did not authorize an appeal
to an adjourned term. I submit that the reasoning of the Court in the
case cited sustains the position now taken. If it be said, in answer,
that the entry was directed to be made on the 26th of January, the
day on which the order was passed, it was not, in fact, entered until
the 30th, and so became inoperative.
Third,-The precept or process of the Municipal Court, by which
Webster was notified of the proceedings in said Court is a nullity,
because not under the seal of the Court which issued it.
This precept, served upon the prisoner and returned to the Municipal
Court from which it issued, becomes a part of the record of the Court
below, and is designed to accomplish a double purpose. The one is,-
notice to the prisoner when and where he is to be tried; the other is,-
to accomplish the transfer of the party accused from one jurisdiction to
another.
The position, that this order or process should be authenticated by
a seal, is sustained by a variety of considerations. First, A seal is
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