Frederick Peckham v. William Henkel

• Decision Date: 21 February 1910
• Docket Number: No. 366,366
• Citation: 216 U.S. 483,30 S.Ct. 255,54 L.Ed. 579
• Parties: FREDERICK A. PECKHAM, Appt., v. WILLIAM HENKEL, United States Marshal for the Southern District of New York, et al
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

216 U.S. 483

30 S.Ct. 255

54 L.Ed. 579

FREDERICK A. PECKHAM, Appt.,

v WILLIAM HENKEL, United States Marshal for the Southern District of New York, et al.

No. 366.

Argued January 6, 7, 1910.

Decided February 21, 1910.

Messrs. Nash Rockwood, Henry E. Davis, and Max D. Steuer for appellant.

Mr. Jesse C. Adkins and Assistant Attorney General Fowler for appellees.

Mr. Justice Lurton delivered the opinion of the court:

This is an appeal from a judgment of the circuit court, denying the application of the appellant to be discharged from arrest on a writ of habeas corpus, and remanding him to the custody of the marshal.

The case differs from the case of Haas v. Henkel, just disposed of [216 U. S. 462, 54 L. ed. ——, 30 Sup. Ct. Rep. 249], only in certain particulars; otherwise it is governed by the opinion in that case.

1. Peckham is included in only two of the indictments against Haas, namely Nos. 26,086 and 26,087. The first charges a conspiracy with Edwin S. Holmes, Jr., and Moses Haas to defraud the United States; the other with a conspiracy with Haas, and others unknown, to commit an offense against the United States, that of bribing Holmes, an assistant statistician in the Department of Agriculture, to do an act in violation of his official duty.

Neither of the indictments found in the District of Columbia against Peckham includes the count charging a conspiracy to bribe Holmes to falsify one of the official cotton crop reports.

In all other matters this appeal is controlled by the opinion and judgment in the Haas Case, unless a different result must follow from the facts now to be stated.

In 1905, three indictments were returned against Peckham, Holmes, and Haas in the supreme court for the District of Columbia, charging them with conspiring to defraud the United States and to commit an offense against the United States. A warrant for Peckham's arrest was issued in the northern district of New York upon a complaint filed with the commissioner for his removal to the District of Columbia for trial. Peckham appeared and waived examination, and gave bail for his appearance in the District of Columbia court to answer the indictments there pending. Subsequently his sureties surrendered him, pursuant to § 1018, Rev. Stat., U. S. Comp. Stat. 1901, p. 719, whereupon the commissioner issued a warrant recommitting him to the custody of the United States marshal for the northern district of New York. Thereupon he applied to District Judge Ray, of that district, for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging, upon the facts stated, that his detention was contrary to law and in violation of the Constitution of the United States, for that the aforesaid indictments did not charge any crime or offense against the United States. Upon a hearing before Judge Ray, the petition was dismissed, the writ denied, and Peckham remanded to the custody of the marshal, and an order made at the same time for his removal to the District of Columbia. From this judgment an appeal was at once allowed to the circuit court of appeals for the second circuit. In consequence of this, Judge Ray directed that the execution of the removal order made by him be stayed until the appeal should be disposed of. That stay order was made January 10, 1906, and was still in force when, in November, 1908, the proceedings for his removal to answer the 1908 indictments were had. The pendency of the proceedings for his removal from the northern district of New York to answer the District of Columbia indictments found in 1905, and of his appeal from the judgment of the circuit court for that district, and the order made staying the removal order made in the proceedings referred to, were shown in evidence before the commissioner in the proceedings under review in the present appeal, as a legal obstacle to any order of removal to answer the 1908 indictments, and also as evidence bearing upon the defense of the statute of limitations as a bar to those indictments. The 1905 indictments are for similar offenses to those charged in the later indictments of 1908; but they are not for the same offenses. They...