Commonwealth ex rel. Henderson v. Baldi
| Decision Date | 05 January 1953 |
| Docket Number | 7346 |
| Citation | 372 Pa. 463,93 A.2d 458 |
| Parties | COMMONWEALTH ex rel. HENDERSON v. BALDI, Superintendent of County Prison. |
| Court | Pennsylvania Supreme Court |
Argued November 24, 1952
Habeas corpus proceeding brought by fugitive from justice to avoid extradition. The Court of Common Pleas No. 7 of Philadelphia County, L. Stauffer Oliver, P. J., entered an order dismissing the petition, and the fugitive appealed. The Supreme Court, Jones, J., No. 171, January term, 1952, held that the demanding State was the proper place in which to raise issues of cruel and inhuman punishment.
Affirmed.
Appeal, No. 171, Jan. T., 1952, from order of Court of Quarter Sessions of Philadelphia County, Miscellaneous Docket 1951, Nov. Sessions, 1951, in case of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania ex rel. J. W. Henderson v. F. S. Baldi Superintendent of County Prisons. Order affirmed.
Proceeding upon petition of relator for writ of habeas corpus.
Order entered refusing writ, opinion by OLIVER, P.J. Relator appealed.
It follows that the order denying the writ must be affirmed.
Lewis Tanner Moore , with him James C Lightfoot , for appellant.
Malcolm Berkowitz , Assistant District Attorney, with him Samuel Dash , Assistant District Attorney, Michael von Moschzisker , First Assistant District Attorney, James W. Tracey, Jr ., Deputy Assistant Attorney General for State of Georgia and Richardson Dilworth , District Attorney, for appellee.
Before STERN, C.J., STEARNE, JONES, BELL and CHIDSEY, JJ.
This appeal is from a final order of a judge of the Court of Common Pleas No. 7 of Philadelphia County denying the relator's petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Apparently the proceeding below was mistakenly pursued for a time in the Court of Quarter Sessions. However, it appears that the rule on the petition was granted and the matter heard and disposed of by a judge of the Court of Common Pleas. We shall accordingly treat with the appeal on its merits the same as if the proceeding had been regularly docketed in the Court of Common Pleas as it originally should have been: see Act of May 258 1951, P.L. 415, 12 PS §§ 1901, 1907. The application for the writ was intended to avoid the extradition of the relator. The case, therefore, falls within the description, "all other cases", in Section 7 of the Act of 1951, supra, and the appeal properly lies to this court.
The relator is a fugitive convict from the State of Georgia where he is under a life sentence imposed following his conviction of murder upon his plea of guilty. After he had served less than a year of the sentence, he escaped and fled the State. He was apprehended in Philadelphia on October 11, 1951, where he was lodged in the Moyamensing County Prison as a fugitive from justice. In due course his extradition to Georgia was requested by the Governor of that State and on November 7, 1951, the Governor of Pennsylvania, by order formally entered, honored the request. The relator thereupon filed his petition in the court below for a writ of habeas corpus alleging that if he was returned to Georgia, he would be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of constitutional prohibitions. After a full hearing on the merits, the court below, concluding that "... there is no substance whatever in relator's alleged fear that he will suffer cruel and inhuman punishment if he is returned to Georgia," denied the petition. It is that finding and the court's exclusion of certain testimony offered at the hearing, concerning alleged cruel and inhuman punishment of prisoners in Georgia, which constitute the appellant's present assignments of error.
It is unnecessary, however, for us to consider the errors alleged. None of them charges any irregularity in the extradition proceedings and that is all that can presently concern us. Under the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act of July 8, 1941 P.L. 288 19 PS § 191 et seq., the extent of the proof required to sustain a State's requisition of another State for the extradition therefrom of a fugitive from justice is that the subject of the extradition is charged with a crime in the demanding State, that he was present in the demanding State at the time of the commission of the crime charged, that he is a fugitive...
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