Ex Parte Trader

• Decision Date: 26 November 1887
• Citation: 6 S.W. 533
• Parties: <I>Ex parte</I> TRADER.
• Court: Texas Court of Appeals

6 S.W. 533

Ex parte TRADER.

Court of Appeals of Texas.

November 26, 1887.

Appeal from district court, Eastland county; T. H. CONNER, Judge.

An application for a writ of habeas corpus on the relation of E. J. Trader, refused on hearing, and relator appealed.

J. H. Davenport, R. B. Truly, and Teel & Halton, for appellant. Asst. Atty. Gen. Davidson, for the State.

WHITE, P. J.

A brief statement of the facts, as presented in the record, will best illustrate the proceedings had before the district court, and the questions submitted for our adjudication on this appeal. At the October term, 1885, of the district court of Karnes county, E. J. Trader was indicted for murder. The venue was changed to, and the indictment filed in, the district court of De Witt county, on the thirty-first day of October, 1885. In said latter court, it appears that Trader was duly and regularly admitted to bail, to answer said indictment, and thereby released from corporeal confinement and custody. He left De Witt and went to Eastland county, where his wife, father, and other relatives resided. On the twentieth day of April, 1887, an information, in writing and under oath, and in the terms of the law, (Rev. St. art. 106,) was made to the county judge of Eastland county, by the father, that his son, E. J. Trader, was a lunatic, or non compos mentis. By regular proceedings, had in conformity with the statutes in such cases made and provided, (Rev. St. arts. 106-114, inclusive,) a trial of his lunacy was had; and, by verdict and judgment rendered thereon on the fifth day of May, 1887, in the county court of Eastland county, said E. J. Trader was declared a lunatic, and ordered to be conveyed to the lunatic asylum at Terrell, for restraint and treatment. His relatives and friends, however, having proposed to undertake his care and restraint, and to execute a bond to that effect, were permitted to do so, and he was duly turned over to their care and custody, under the provisions of article 118, Rev. St. While in their custody, Trader, who was a physician by profession, was allowed to, and engaged in, the practice of medicine to some extent. At the September term, 1887, of the district court of De Witt county, when the murder case against Trader was called for trial, and he was found not present to answer to the indictment, his bailbond was regularly forfeited, and alias capias for his arrest awarded, which issued the fifteenth day of September, 1887, and came into the hands of the sheriff of Eastland county, and was by him executed, by arresting the defendant, on the twentieth day of September, 1887. Upon application to him for that purpose by the relatives and friends of Trader, who had, as aforesaid, given bond for his keeping, custody, and restraint as a lunatic, the Hon. T. H. CONNER, judge of the Forty-second judicial district, of which Eastland county was one of the counties in said district, granted to the said applicants a writ of habeas corpus, to have the legality of the arrest of Trader, under the alias capias from De Witt county, tested, and for his discharge from arrest under said writ, and restoration to their custody, as his legal guardians and bondsmen, by virtue of the judgment of the county court of Eastland county on the trial de lunatico inquirendo. The habeas corpus was granted by Judge CONNER, and a full return made to the same by the sheriff of Eastland county, setting forth the facts and the alias capias as his authority for his arrest and detention of the alleged lunatic. A hearing was had by Judge CONNER, under the writ of habeas corpus, on the first of October, 1887, and the result was that he remanded Trader to the custody of the sheriff instead of to the applicants, his bondsmen. From this judgment the bondsmen appeal to this court.

Motion is here made by the assistant attorney general to dismiss the appeal because Judge CONNER had no jurisdiction to hear and determine the habeas corpus, and...