Mary Mabel Rogers v. Henry Peck

• Decision Date: 27 November 1905
• Docket Number: No. 368,368
• Citation: 50 L.Ed. 256,199 U.S. 425,26 S.Ct. 87
• Parties: MARY MABEL ROGERS, Appt. , v. HENRY H. PECK and Wilson S. Lovell
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

199 U.S. 425

26 S.Ct. 87

50 L.Ed. 256

MARY MABEL ROGERS, Appt.,

v HENRY H. PECK and Wilson S. Lovell.

No. 368.

Argued November 6, 1905.

Decided November 27, 1905.

The appellant, Mary Mabel Rogers, having been convicted and sentenced in the county court of Bennington, in the state of Vermont, of the crime of murder in the first degree, filed her petition on June 19, 1905, for a writ of habeas corpus against the sheriff and superintendent of the state prison, in the district court of the United States for the district of Vermont. The petition, having been heard, was denied on June 22, 1905. From that order an appeal was taken to this court.

The conviction of appellant was had at the December term, 1903, of the Bennington county court, and she was sentenced to be confined at hard labor in the state prison at Windsor until the 3d day of November, 1904, and on and after that day to be kept in solitary confinement until February 3, 1905, on which day she should suffer the penalty of death by hanging. On the first day of February, 1905, the Governor of the state of Vermont reprieved the execution of sentence until June 2, 1905. On April 29, 1905, the appellant presented a petition for a new trial to two judges of the supreme court of Vermont. On May 5, 1905, the judges made an order allowing the petition for new trial to be filed, and fixed May 10 for the hearing thereof. After hearing before the supreme court, sitting at Montpelier, Washington county, on May 30 an order was made dismissing the petition, and refusing the new trial. Rogers v. State, 77 Vt. 454, 61 Atl. 489. On June 1, 1905, the execution of sentence was further reprieved by the Governor until June 23, 1905. Thereupon appellant filed her petition in the Federal court for the writ of habeas corpus, which was dismissed, as heretofore stated. On the date of the dismissal of her petition (June 22, 1905), the Governor further reprieved the execution of the sentence until December 8, 1905. The appeal to this court was allowed on June 22, 1905. The petitioner (appellant) averred that, by the various proceedings in the state courts and her incarceration in the prison in solitary confinement, she has been restrained of her liberty and is about to be executed without due process of law, guaranteed for her protection by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

Messrs. Tracy L. Jeffords, T. W. Moloney, and F. M. Butler for appellant.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 427-428 intentionally omitted] Mr. Clarke C. Fitts for appellee.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 428-431 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justice Day delivered the opinion of the court:

For the reversal of the judgment and order of the district court of the United States, discharging the writ and remanding her to the custody of the Vermont authorities, appellant relies upon the following specifications of error:

'First. Because the petitioner was and is deprived of her liberty by the state, and subjected to the punishment of solitary confinement without any statute authorizing such punishment, and without any sentence of any court directing such punishment, and therefore without due process of law.

'Second. Because the supreme court of Vermont, having taken jurisdiction of the petition for a new trial, and having failed to comply with the requirements of law in respect of ordering a stay of execution and fixing the time for the execution of the petitioner, has failed to fix a day for the execution, and the Governor of Vermont has no right or authority to fix such a day, and the petitioner is being held to be executed in accordance with a precept not authorized by law, and which is not in and of itself due process of law.

'Third. Because the state of Vermont, having failed to maintain an appellate court in the County of Bennington, as required by its Constitution, has deprived the relator of the opportunity to be heard by a court of competent jurisdiction, and thus deprived her of due process of law.

'Fourth. Because the Governor of Vermont, having issued his order requiring execution of the petitioner on December 8, while proceedings were pending in the courts of the United States for her relief on habeas corpus, said order of the Governor is to be deemed null and void, and the petitioner should be released from custody thereunder.'

We shall notice these several assignments in the order named.

As to solitary confinement of the prisoner, it is not contended that she was not properly sentenced in this respect by the court of original jurisdiction. The statute of the state of Vermont (Vt. Stat. § 2007) provides:

'When execution is not to take place until after six months from date of sentence, the court at the same time shall sentence the respondent to hard labor in the state prison or house of correction until three months before the time fixed in the sentence of death for execution thereof, and shall also sentence him to solitary confinement in the state prison or house of correction from the expiration of the sentence to hard labor until the time of execution.'

The court, in sentencing the appellant to be hanged on the first Friday of February, 1905, in pursuance of this statute, imposed a sentence of three months at hard labor until within three months of the time fixed for the execution, and three months of solitary confinement next before the day of execution.

The complaint in this behalf is not of a sentence alleged to have been imposed in violation of law but because of the manner in which the appellant has been kept in confinement in prison after the original day fixed for the execution of the sentence. She alleges that she is suffering solitary confinement without due process of law, within the meaning of the 14th Amendment. If she is held in such confinement by the state authorities,—which the record does not disclose, the confinement shown being close rather than solitary,—we are of the opinion that no case within the Federal protection is made. Re Medley, 134 U. S. 160, 33 L. ed. 835, 10 Sup. Ct. Rep. 384, is cited and relied upon by counsel. That case presented an entirely different question. It was there held that a sentence under a state law passed after the commission of felonious homicide, affixing the punishment of solitary confinement for a period of six months in addition to the death penalty, was an ex post facto law within the meaning of § 10, article 1, of the Federal Constitution, and therefore void. In Rooney v. North Dakota, 196 U. S. 319, 49 L. ed. 494, 25 Sup. Ct. Rep. 264, it was held that a statute which substituted close confinement in the penitentiary for a period before execution longer than had theretofore been authorized for confinement in jail was not an ex post facto law. In the present case no sentence or law is being violated, and, assuming the appellant to be held in solitary confinement, there is nothing to prevent her having relief at the hands of the state authorities, and nothing to show that the appellant is being deprived of her liberty in violation of any right secured to her by the Federal Constitution.

The extent of the right of the Federal courts to interfere by the writ of habeas corpus with the proceedings of courts and other authorities of a state is carefully defined by statute. When a prisoner is in jail he may be released upon habeas corpus when held in violation of his constitutional rights. Rev. Stat. § 753, U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 592. In the case before us, assuming for this purpose that the appellant has been properly convicted and sentenced of one of the gravest offenses known to the law, she is properly restrained of her liberty while in custody, for the purpose of making the sentence effectual. If her custodian is improperly restricting her freedom more than is necessary or legal under state law, there is no reason to suppose that the state authorities will not afford the necessary relief. And certainly there is nothing in this branch of the case to justify Federal interference with the local authority intrusted with the keeping of the prisoner.

The reluctance with which this court will sanction Federal interference with a state in the administration of its domestic law for the prosecution of crime has been frequently stated in the deliverances of the court upon the subject. It is only where fundamental rights, specially secured by...