Petitioners were arrested in February 1954 on John Doe warrants and subsequently were indicted in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, with two others, for violations of the local lottery laws and for conspiracy to carry on a lottery. After indictment each filed a pre-trial motion under Rule 41(e) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, asking for the suppression of evidence seized from his person at the time of his arrest. The District Court granted petitioners' motions to suppress, on the ground that probable cause had been lacking for the issuance of the arrest warrants directed against them. United States v. Hall, D.C., 126 F.Supp. 620. The Government appealed the order for suppression to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The indictment against petitioners had not been dismissed, but the Government informed the Court of Appeals that, without the 'numbers' paraphernalia seized and suppressed, it would lack sufficient evidence to proceed on any of the counts involving petitioners and therefore would have to dismiss the indictment. Petitioners challenged the jurisdiction of the Court of Appeals to hear an appeal by the Government from an order of the District Court granting a motion to suppress that was made while an indictment was pending in the same District Court. The Court of Appeals sustained its jurisdiction on the authority of its prior decision in United States v. Cefaratti, and reversed the district judge on the merits, holding that there had been probable cause to justify the issuance of warrants for the arrest of petitioners. 98 U.S.App.D.C. 244, 234 F.2d 679. We granted certiorari, limited to the question of appealability of the suppression order, because of the importance of that question to the administration of the federal criminal laws. 352 U.S. 906, 77 S.Ct. 151, 1 L.Ed.2d 117.
The Government contends, most broadly, that the suppression order of any District Court is 'final' and sufficiently separable and collateral to the criminal case to be appealable under the general authority of 28 U.S.C. § 1291, 28 U.S.C.A. § 1291, notwithstanding that such an order is not listed among the few types of orders in criminal cases from which the Government may appeal pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3731, 18 U.S.C.A. § 3731. More narrowly, failing acceptance of the position just stated, the Government maintains that an order of suppression is, within the criminal case, a 'final' order and thus appealable under the statutory provisions for appeals by the Government in criminal cases that are applicable exclusively in the District of Columbia. It will be convenient to discuss the issues in the same order.
It is axiomatic, as a matter of history as well as doctrine, that the existence of appellate jurisdiction in a specific federal court over a given type of case is dependent upon authority expressly conferred by statute. And since the jurisdictional statutes prevailing at any given time are so much a product of the whole history of both growth and limitation of federal-court jurisdiction since the First Judiciary Act, 1 Stat. 73, they have always been interpreted in the light of that history and of the axiom that clear statutory mandate must exist to found jurisdiction. It suffices to cite as authority for these principles some of the cases in which they have been applied to the general problem now before us, the availability of appellate review sought by the Government in criminal cases. E.g., United States v. More, 3 Cranch 159, 2 L.Ed. 397; United States v. Sanges, 144 U.S. 310, 12 S.Ct. 609, 36 L.Ed. 445; In re Heath, 144 U.S. 92, 12 S.Ct. 615, 36 L.Ed. 358; Cross v. United States, 145 U.S. 571, 12 S.Ct. 842, 36 L.Ed. 821; United States v. Burroughs, 289 U.S. 159, 53 S.Ct. 574, 77 L.Ed. 1096.