Lascelles v. State of Georgia
| Citation | 13 S.Ct. 687,37 L.Ed. 549,148 U.S. 537 |
| Decision Date | 03 April 1893 |
| Docket Number | No. 1,262,1,262 |
| Parties | LASCELLES v. STATE OF GEORGIA |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
This case is brought here by writ of error to the supreme court of the state of Georgia. The single federal question presented by the record, and relied on to confer upon this court the jurisdiction to review the judgment of the supreme court of Georgia, complained of by the plaintiff in error, is whether a fugitive from justice, who has been surrendered by one state of the Union to another state thereof upon requisition charging him with the commission of a specific crime, has, under the constitution and laws of the United States, a right, privilege, or immunity to be exempt from indictment and trial in the state to which he is returned for any other or different offense than that designated and described in the requisition proceedings under which he was demanded by and restored to such state, without first having an opportunity to return to the state from which he was extradited.
The facts of the case on which this question is raised are briefly these: In July, 1891, two indictments were regularly found by the grand jury of the county of Floyd, state of Georgia, against the plaintiff in error, under the name of Walter S. Beresford, ford, which respectively charged him with the offense 'of being a common cheat and swindler,' and with the crime of 'larceny after trust delegated,' both being criminal acts by the laws of Georgia, and alleged to have been committed in the county of Floyd. At the time these indictments were found, the plaintiff in error was residing in the state of New York. In September, 1891, the governor of the state of Georgia made a requisition on the governor of the state of New York for the arrest and surrender of the plaintiff in error to designated officials of the former state, naming him, as he was named in the indictment, Walter S. Beresford. In the requisition, as well as in the warrant for his arrest, the offenses for which his rendition was demanded were stated and designated as charged in the indictment. After being arrested in pursuance of the warrant, he was duly delivered to the agent of the state of Georgia, was brought to the county of Floyd, in said state, and there delivered to the sheriff of the county, by whom he was detained in the county jail. While so held, and before trial upon either of the indictments on which the requisition proceedings were based, the grand jury of the county, on October 6, 1891, found a new indictment against him for the crime of forgery, naming him therein as Sidney Lascelles, which was his true and proper name. Thereafter he was put upon his trial in the superior court of the county of Floyd upon this last indictment. Before arraignment he moved the court to quash said indictment 'on the ground that he was being tried for a separate and different offense from that for which he was extradited from the state of New York to the state of Georgia, without first being allowed a reasonable opportunity to return to the state of New York.' This motion was overruled, and he was put upon trial. Thereupon he filed a special plea setting forth the foregoing facts, and averring that he could not be lawfully tried for a separate and different crime from that for which he was extradited. This plea was overruled, and, having been put upon his trial under the indictment, he was found guilty of the offense charged. His motion for a new trial being overruled and refused, he filed a bill of exceptions, and carried the case to the supreme court of Georgia, the court of highest and last resort in that state, before which he again asserted his exemption from trial upon the indictment upon the grounds stated in his motion to quash, and in his special plea; but the supreme court of Georgia sustained the action of the lower court therein, and in all respects affirmed the judgment of the superior court.
W. W. Vandiver, for plaintiff in error.
J. M. Terrell and D. B. Hamilton, for the State.
The plaintiff in error prosecutes the present writ of error to review and reverse this decision of the supreme court of Georgia, claiming that, in its rendition, a right, privilege, or immunity secured to him under the constitution and laws of the United States, specially set up and insisted on, was denied. The particular right claimed to have been denied is the alleged exemption from indictment and trial except for the specific offenses on which he had been surrendered.
The question presented for our consideration and determination is whether the constitution and laws of the United States impose any such limitation or restriction upon the power and authority of a state to indict and try persons charged with offenses against its laws, who are brought within its jurisdiction under interstate rendition proceedings. While cases involving questions of international extradition and interstate rendition of fugitives from justice have frequently been before this court for decision, this court has not passed upon the precise point here presented. The second clause of section 2, article 4, of the constitution of the United States, declares that 'a person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice, and be found in another state, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime.' To carry this provision into effect, congress passed the act of February 12, 1793, the first and second sections of which have been reenacted and embodied in sections 5278 and 5279 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, prescribing the methods of procedure on the part of the state demanding the surrender of the fugitive, and providing that 'it shall be the duty of the executive authority of the state or territory to which such person has fled to cause him to be arrested and secured, and cause notice of the arrest to be given to the executive authority making such demand, or to the agent of such authority appointed to receive the fugitive, and to cause the fugitive to be delivered to such agent when he shall appear,' and providing, further, that the agent 'so appointed, who shall receive the fugitive into his custody, shall be empowered to transport him to the state or territory from which he has fled.'
Upon these provisions of the organic and statutory law of the United States rest exclusively the right of one state to demand, and the obligation of the other state upon which the demand is made to surrender, a fugitive from justice. Now, the proposition advanced on behalf of the plaintiff in error in support of the federal right claimed to have been denied him is that, inasmuch as interstate rendition can only be effected when the person demanded as a fugitive from justice is duly charged with some particular offense or offenses, his surrender upon such demand carries with it the implied condition that he is to be tried alone for the designated crime, and that, in respect to all offenses other than those specified in the demand for his surrender, he has the same right of exemption as a fugitive from justice extradited from a foreign nation. This proposition assumes, as is broadly claimed, that the states of the Union are independent governments, having the full prerogatives and powers of nations, except what have been conferred upon the general government, and not only have the right to grant, but do in fact afford, to all persons within their boundaries, an asylum as broad and secure as that which independent nations extend over their citizens and inhabitants. Having reached, upon this assumption, or by this process of reasoning, the conclusion that the same rule should be recognized and applied in interstate rendition as in foreign extradition of fugitives from justice, the decision of this court in U. S. v. Rauscher, 119 U. S. 407 et seq., 7 Sup. Ct. Rep. 234, is invoked as a controlling authority on the question under consideration. If the premises on which this argument is based were sound, the conclusion might be correct. But the fallacy of the argument lies in the assumption that the states of the Union occupy towards each other, in respect to fugitives from justice, the relation of foreign nations, in the same sense in which the general government stands towards independent sovereignties on that subject; and in the further assumption that a fugitive from justice acquires in the state to which he may flee some state or personal right...
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