Ex parte Glenn

• Decision Date: 22 September 1900
• Citation: 103 F. 947
• Parties: Ex parte GLENN.
• Court: Circuit Court of Virginia

103 F. 947

Ex parte GLENN.

United States Circuit Court, D. West Virginia.

September 22, 1900

C. T Caldwell, J. G. McCluer, and J. D. Wolverton, for petitioner.

J. F Laird and C. M. Showalter, for the State of West Virginia.

JACKSON District Judge.

Ellis Glenn, the petitioner in this case, has applied to this court for a writ of habeas corpus to discharge her from the custody of the authorities of the state. The petitioner alleges that she never has been a citizen of the state of West Virginia and never was in the state previous to the time that she was forcibly seized and removed from the state of Illinois to this state without due process of law. She is indicted in this state for a violation of one of its penal statutes, and it appears from the evidence in this cause that the governor of this state issued a requisition upon the governor of Illinois, under the act of congress, asking for her surrender to the authorities of this state to answer an indictment against her pending in the criminal court of Wood county, and that the governor of Illinois issued his warrant for her delivery and extradition to the agent of this state. The warrant was directed to a legally authorized officer of the state of Illinois, but was never received or executed by such officer, but was delivered to the agent of the state of West Virginia, who, by physical force, seized the petitioner in the nighttime, and removed her from the state of Illinois to the state of West Virginia pending an application of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the state of Illinois to inquire into the cause of her detention. This action of the agent of this state was little, if anything, less kidnapping. He had no right whatever by force to remove the petitioner. His duty was to have delivered that warrant to an officer of the state of Illinois, whose duty it was to execute the warrant, and deliver the prisoner to him. It appears from the evidence that, to prevent the petitioner from having a hearing of her petition before a judge of one of the courts of Illinois, the agent of the state, on or about midnight, took her from the jail of the county in which she was confined, with the connivance of the jailer, and by force transferred her to a railway station, and put her upon a train, and brought her to this state. Such action upon the part of the agent of the state of West Virginia was an outrage upon the rights and liberty of this...