Accardo v. State

• Court: Alabama Court of Appeals
• Writing for the Court: CATES; Fee
• Citation: Accardo v. State, 102 So.2d 913, 39 Ala.App. 453 (Ala. App. 1958)
• Decision Date: 20 May 1958
• Docket Number: 7 Div. 534
• Parties: Anthony Michael ACCARDO v. STATE.

Page 913

102 So.2d 913

39 Ala.App. 453

Anthony Michael ACCARDO v. STATE.

7 Div. 534.

Court of Appeals of Alabama.

May 20, 1958.

Anthony M. Accardo, pro se.

John Patterson, Atty. Gen., and Edmon L. Rinehart, Asst. Atty. Gen., for the State.

CATES, Judge.

This is an appeal from an order of the Talladega Circuit Court in response to a motion by Accardo for a writ of habeas corpus ad deliberandum et recipiendum. (3 Bl.Com. 130.)

The order appealed from reads as follows:

'On this the 25th day of February, 1958, the foregoing petition being this day presented to the Court, and it appearing to the Court from the record of this cause that Petitioner escaped from the Talladega County jail while awaiting trial in this cause and is now under confinement in a Federal Penitentiary in the State of Georgia after conviction of another offense; it is ordered the writ of habeas corpus be denied and that the hearing on the other matters in this motion be, and the same is hereby, continued indefinitely to be reset on motion of the Petitioner as soon as the Petitioner is again in the custody of the Sheriff of Talladega County, Alabama.

'/s/ Harry R. Teel

'Judge from 29th Judicial Circuit of Alabama.'

Accardo complains that he is entitled to a speedy trial for second degree burglary arising out of an alleged breaking into the First Methodist Church of Sylacauga.

A delay of trial for twelve years of a prisoner in the Alabama penitentiary violated his constitutional right to a speedy trial, Ex parte State ex rel. Attorney General, 255 Ala. 443, 52 So.2d 158. However, we cannot conceive of this principle applying to a prisoner who has made his trial impossible, first, by escaping from the State, and, second, by some other misconduct putting himself in the jurisdiction and custody of the prison system of another sovereign. These circumstances evoke a doctrine like unto the suspension of the running of the statute of limitations during absence from the State.

Accardo's being in the custody of the Attorney General of the United States at the Atlanta Penitentiary precludes our State courts from entertaining an application for the writ.

'The rules and regulations of the United States Army are the law of the land (Root v. Stevenson, 24 Ind. 115); and, whatever authority the state courts have under state laws to grant writs of habeas corpus, it does not apply to discharge from custody of persons held by authority of the laws of the United States. Regulations for U.S. Army, art. LXXII; In re Royall, 117 U.S. 241, 6 S.Ct. 734, 29 L.Ed. 868.' Ex parte McMillan, 15 Ala.App. 571, 74 So. 396.

Moreover, the ambit of the writ is confined to the territory of the sovereign who is asked to grant it, Johnson v. Eisentrager, 339 U.S. 763, 70 S.Ct. 936, 94 L.Ed. 1255; code 1940, T. 15, § 1. Also, it is addressed to a person under the dominion of that sovereign, for the custodian alone can produce the body. The operation of comity between...