United States · Statute
The First Congress’s Crimes Act, including diplomatic process immunity, qualifications concerning servants, and protection against violence.
Requested text available. Collection target: Statutes at Large chapter scan, 1 Stat. 112–119
1790
U.S. Government Publishing Office, GovInfo. The complete repository file was checked for page sequence, with sampled image review. GovInfo supplies this unchanged eight-page chapter file from Statutes at Large, Volume 1, pages 112–119. It contains the complete Act of April 30, 1790, chapter 9, together with portions of adjoining acts on the shared opening and closing pages; it is not the complete bound volume. Sections 25–26 concern coercive judicial process against recognized ambassadors, public ministers, and their protected households or property. Section 27 contains qualifications for servants, and section 28 separately addresses violence and safe-conduct violations. Finzer uses the act as an early-practice analogy for limits on petitioning, in addition to citing its diplomatic-immunity provisions. The act is a historical source, not a claim about current operative law. The file includes later editorial annotations and the Government Publishing Office’s existing authentication mark, all preserved unchanged. Finzer was affirmed in part and reversed in part by Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312, 329–34 (1988): the display clause was held unconstitutional, and the congregation clause survived as narrowly construed. Recording these historical citations does not endorse the reversed holding.
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Robert H. Bork · Opinion for the court
Finzer v. Barry, 798 F.2d 1450, 1456–57 (D.C. Cir. 1986).
Bork cites the 1790 act’s invalidation of coercive process against protected diplomats and its penalties for those who pursue or execute that process. On the following reporter page, he treats this early restriction on court access as an analogy involving the right to petition.
GovInfo supplies this unchanged eight-page chapter file from Statutes at Large, Volume 1, pages 112–119. It contains the complete Act of April 30, 1790, chapter 9, together with portions of adjoining acts on the shared opening and closing pages; it is not the complete bound volume.
Sections 25–26 concern coercive judicial process against recognized ambassadors, public ministers, and their protected households or property. Section 27 contains qualifications for servants, and section 28 separately addresses violence and safe-conduct violations.
Finzer uses the act as an early-practice analogy for limits on petitioning, in addition to citing its diplomatic-immunity provisions. The act is a historical source, not a claim about current operative law.
The file includes later editorial annotations and the Government Publishing Office’s existing authentication mark, all preserved unchanged.
Finzer was affirmed in part and reversed in part by Boos v. Barry, 485 U.S. 312, 329–34 (1988): the display clause was held unconstitutional, and the congregation clause survived as narrowly construed. Recording these historical citations does not endorse the reversed holding.