Show AX I3IPORTAXT LAND DECISION Spanish grants in Mexico have long been the subject of litigation and many landholders who supposed they were the legal owners of their possessions have found themselves out and injured by the production of old documents establishing es-tablishing prior claims This has unsettled un-settled land affairs very much in the territories which were once part > of Old Mexico S A dispatch to the San Francisco Examiner Ex-aminer from Tucson Arizona dated March 30 contains the substance of an important decision by the United States Court of Private Land Claims It is to the effect that the State of Sonora Mexico had no power to make land grants This confirms the settlers set-tlers in their rights The dispatch says This opinion was based on the decree de-cree of Santa Ana dictator of Mexico from 1853 to 1855 who in 1854 declared all grants whatsoever made by the states and provinces of Mexico void All grants in Arizona it is claimed with the exception of the Sonita grant were from the State of Sonora The grants in question were as follows Sonita made in 1831 area 9000 acres < I f S I > Babacomari made in 1832 area 36 I 000 acres San Rafael del Valle made in 1833 area 18000 acres Nogales de Elias made in 1844 area 10000 acres in Arizona The Nogales grant was rejected unanimously This was a stunner to the counsel for the grant in question they having filed a petition for a rehearing re-hearing of the case on the ground that the only consideration was Seven and a half leagues thus getting enough land in the grant to reach into Arizona and include the town of Nogales With the grant knocked out the application will hardly prevail In the Sonita grant case the most important of all the cases tried at this term the Court held the grant void on the following ground The proceedings were initiated on the 29th of May 1821 Various steps were taken under the alleged customs prevailing pre-vailing at that time down to the 12th day of November 1821 when it was claimed the purchase money was paid but that no grant title was found thereon there-on until the 15th day of May 1825 by Juan Miguel Riesgo commissary general gen-eral of public credit and war of the republic I re-public of Mexico for the state of the west Justice Sloss in his opinion held I That on March 1 1821 the plan of Iguala was adopted which was the declaration de-claration of independency that the declaration was carried to a successful termination and under the revolution of September 27 1821 the City of Mexico Mex-ico was evacuated and the provisional government established composed of a regency of five and a legislative body He held that no equities vested in the purchaser until the purchase money was paid which was subsequent to the date of the independence as well as subsequent to the establishment of the new government independent of Spain i and that the officials could only exercise exer-cise official functions for the purpose of preserving peace and good order and the rights of property as they existed that no subsequent legislation was enacted en-acted authorizing any one to complete titles or to reform initiated titles and that the acts of all Spanish officers with reference to the public domain subsequent to the plan of Iguala March i 1 1821 and the establishment of the provisional government in September i 1821 were void i The substance of this branch of the case is that no act of the Spanish officials of-ficials with reference to the public domain do-main subsequent to March 1 1821 could bind the Mexican government and therefore did not bind this government Upon the propositon that Reisgo was a Mexican official who is alleged to have issued the title and that therefore his authority must be presumed he holds that he was a creature of the law and that an examination of the act under which his office was created defined his powers and duties and did not authorize him to grant lands complete I titles or confirm the same in any way that being a creature of the statutes I his powersm ust be measured thereby I and the principal of presumption did not apply I The decision met with the approval I of nearly every one here for this practically I prac-tically settles the question of the va1 t I lidity of grants in the southern portion S of Arizona It is the general opinion that any appeal to the United States Supreme Court must result in a verdict in favor of the settlers thus emphasizing Ii emphasiz-ing in a more marked degree the justice jus-tice of the position they have always maintained and setting forth clearly the pretexts upon which the claims of the grantee rested I |