Collins v. Loisel

• Decision Date: 04 June 1923
• Docket Number: No. 880,880
• Parties: COLLINS v. LOISEL, United States Marshal
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

262 U.S. 426

43 S.Ct. 618

67 L.Ed. 1062

COLLINS

v LOISEL, United States Marshal.

No. 880.

Argued May 4, 1923.

Decided June 4, 1923.

Messrs. J. Zach Spearing, of New Orleans, La., and Guion Miller, of Baltimore, Md., for appellant.

Mr. Robert H. Marr, of New Orleans, La., for appellee.

Mr. Justice BRANDEIS delivered the opinion of the Court.

This is the third appeal by Collins in habeas corpus proceedings instituted to prevent his extradition to British India. After the decision in Collins v. Miller, 252 U. S. 364, 40 Sup. Ct. 347, 64 L. Ed. 616, the District Court dismissed the application for habeas corpus so far as the commitment was based on the charge of obtaining property by false pretenses from Mahomed Alli Zaimel Ali Raza, and remanded Collins to the custody of Loisel, the marshal. The judgment of the District Court discharged the prisoner, so far as the commitment was based on charges of obtaining property by false pretenses from Pohoomul Bros. and from Ganeshi Lall & Sons. The ground of the discharge, stated in the judgment, was that Collins had been remanded to await further proceedings on these charges to the end that he might be given the opportunity of introducing evidence at a preliminary examination under the law of Louisiana; that no further examination had been held that the prosecution on those affidavits had been definitely abandoned; and that other new affidavits had been filed by the British consul general. In this judgment the British consul general acquiesced. Collins appealed. The judgment was affirmed in Collins v. Loisel, 259 U. S. 309, 42 Sup. Ct. 469, 66 L. Ed. 956.

On those new affidavits, referred to in the judgment, apparently Collins was again committed to await extradition; the papers were transmitted for action to the Department of State with the magistrate's certificate; but, owing to the fact that proceedings were still pending in the District Court, the department refused to issue the warrant of extradition. Thereafter, while the Loisel Case was pending in this court, and while Collins was being held in custody to answer on the charge of obtaining property from Mahomed Alli Zaimel Ali Raza, a third set of affidavits were lodged against the prisoner by the British consul general before the same committing magistrate. They were in form and substance identical with those in which Collins had been previously charged with obtaining property by false pretenses from Pohoomul Bros. and from Ganeshi Lall & Sons and discharged by the District Court. Alleging that the affidavits were identical with those first filed on which he had been so discharged, Collins moved, before the magistrate, to quash the new affidavits. His motion was overruled; and, after due hearing, an order was entered by the magistrate again committing Collins to be held for extradition on these charges. Then he filed, in the same District Court, this petition for a writ of habeas corpus and certiorari. Judgment was entered therein in December, 1922, dismissing this second petition for a writ of habeas corpus; Collins was remanded to the custody of the marshal; and this appeal was taken under section 238 of the Judicial Code (Comp. St. § 1215). After hearing counsel for appellant, this court on May 4, 1923, ordered that the judgment below be affirmed, and that the mandate issue forthwith. Because of the importance of the question presented, the reasons for this decision are now stated.

Collins contended that commitment on the new affidavits, after discharge in proceeding based on others identical in form and substance, was a violation of the Fifth Amendment and of the Treaty with Great Britain. The constitutional provision against double jeopardy can have no application unless a prisoner has, theretofore, been placed on trial. See Kepner v. United States, 1 5 U. S. 100, 126, 24 Sup. Ct. 797, 49 L. Ed. 114, 1 Ann. Cas. 655. The preliminary examination of one arrested on suspicion of a crime is not a trial; and his discharge by the magistrate upon such examination is not an acquittal. Commonwealth v. Rice, 216 Mass. 480, 104 N. E. 347; People v. Dillon, 197 N. Y. 254, 256, 90 N. E. 820, 18 Ann. Cas. 552. Even the finding of an indictment followed by arraignment, pleading thereto, repeated continuances, and eventually dismissal at the instance of the prosecuting officer on the ground that there was not sufficient evidence to hold the accused, was held, in Bassing v. Cady, 208 U. S. 386, 391, 28 Sup. Ct. 392, 52 L. Ed. 540, 13 Ann. Cas. 905, not to constitute jeopardy. Likewise it has been consistently held under the treaties with Great Britain and other countries, that a fugitive from justice may be arrested in extradition proceedings a second time upon a new complaint charging the same crime, where he was discharged by the magistrate on the first complaint or the complaint was withdrawn.¹ The precise question appears not to have been passed upon by this court in any case involving international extradition. But in Bassing v. Cady, supra, the rule was applied to a case of interstate rendition. Protection against unjustifiable vexation and harassment incident to repeated arrests for the same alleged crime must ordinarily be sought, not in constitutional limitations or treaty provisions, but in a high sense of responsibility on the part of the public officials charged with duties in this connection. The proceedings before the committing magistrate on the first and on the second set of affidavits; and the action of the Department of State on the...