George Pettibone v. Jasper Nichols

• Decision Date: 03 December 1906
• Docket Number: No. 249,249
• Parties: GEORGE A. PETTIBONE, Appt., v. JASPER C. NICHOLS, Sheriff
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

203 U.S. 192

27 S.Ct. 111

51 L.Ed. 148

GEORGE A. PETTIBONE, Appt.,

v JASPER C. NICHOLS, Sheriff.

No. 249.

Argued October 10, 11, 1906.

Decided December 3, 1906.

This is an appeal from a judgment of the circuit court of the United States for the district of Idaho, refusing, upon habeas corpus, to discharge the appellant, who alleged that he was held in custody by the sheriff of Canyon county, in that state, in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States.

It appears that on the 12th day of February, 1906, a criminal complaint verified by the oath of the prosecuting attorney of that county and charging Pettibone with having murdered Frank Steunenberg at Caldwell, Idaho, on the 30th day of December, 1905, was filed in the office of the probate judge. Thereupon, a warrant of arrest based upon that complaint having been issued, application was made to the governor of Idaho for a requisition upon the governor of Colorado (in which state the accused was alleged then to be) for the arrest of Pettibone, and his delivery to the agent of Idaho, to be conveyed to the latter state and there dealt with in accordance with law. The papers on which the governor of Idaho based his requisition distinctly charged that Pettibone was in that state at the time Steunenberg was murdered and was a fugitive from its justice.

A requisition by the governor of Idaho was accordingly issued and was duly honored by the governor of Colorado, who issued a warrant commanding the arrest of Pettibone and his delivery to the authorized agent of Idaho, to be conveyed to the latter state. Pettibone was arrested under that warrant and carried to Idaho by its agent, and was there delivered by order of the probate judge into the custody of the warden of the state penitentiary, the jail of the county being deemed at that time an unfit place.

On the 23d day of February, 1906, Pettibone sued out a writ of habeas corpus from the supreme court of Idaho. The warden made a return, stating the circumstances under which the accused came into his custody, and also that the charge against Pettibone was then under investigation by the grand jury. To this return the accused made an answer embodying the same matters as were alleged in the application for the writ of habeas corpus, and charging, in substance, that his presence in Idaho had been procured by connivance, conspiracy, and fraud on the part of the executive officers of Idaho, and that his detention was in violation of the provisions of the Constitution of the United States and of the act of Congress relating to fugitives from justice.

Subsequently, March 7th, 1906, the grand jury returned an indictment against Pettibone, William D. Haywood, Charles H. Moyer, and John L. Simpkins, charging them with the murder of Steunenberg on the 30th of December, 1905, at Caldwell, Idaho. Having been arrested and being in custody under that indictment, the officer holding Pettibone made an amended return stating the fact of the above indictment, and that he was then held under a bench warrant based thereon.

At the hearing before the supreme court of the state the officers having Pettibone in custody moved to strike from the answer of the accused all allegations relating to the manner and method of obtaining his presence within the state. That motion was sustained March 12th, 1906, and the prisoner was remanded to await his trial under the above indictment. The supreme court of Idaho held the action of the governor of Colorado to be at least quasi judicial and, in effect, a determination that Pettibone was charged with the commission of a crime in the former state and was a fugitive from its justice; that, after the prisoner came within the jurisdiction of the demanding state, he could not raise in its courts the question whether he was or had been, as a matter of fact, a fugitive from the justice of that state; that the courts of Idaho had no jurisdiction to inquire into the acts or motives of the executive of the state delivering the prisoner; that 'one who commits a crime against the laws of a state, whether committed by him while in person on its soil, or absent in a foreign jurisdiction, and acting through some other agency or medium, has no vested right of asylum in a sister state,' and the fact 'that a wrong is committed against him in the manner or method pursued in subjecting his person to the jurisdiction of the complaining state, and that such wrong is redressible either in the civil or criminal courts, can constitute no legal or just reason why he himself should not answer the charge against him when brought before the proper tribunal.' Ex parte Moyer, 85 Pac. 897; Ex parte Pettibone, 85 Pac. 902.

From the judgment of the supreme court of Idaho a writ of error was prosecuted to this court. That case is No. 265 on the docket of the present term, but the record has not been printed. But the parties agree that the same questions are presented on this appeal as arise in that case, and as this case is one of urgency in the affairs of a state, we have acceded to the request that they may be argued and determined on this appeal.

On the 15th of March, 1906, after the final judgment in the supreme court of Idaho, Pettibone made application to the circuit court of the United States, sitting in Idaho, for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging that he was restrained of his liberty by the sheriff of Canyon county, in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States. As was done in the supreme court of Idaho, the accused set out numerous facts and circumstances which, he contended, showed that his personal presence in Idaho was secured by fraud and connivance on the part of the executive officers and agents of both Idaho and Colorado, in violation of the constitutional and statutory provisions relating to fugitives from justice. Consequently, it was argued, the court in Idaho did not acquire jurisdiction over his person. The officer having Pettibone in custody made return to the writ that he then held the accused under the bench warrant issued against him. It was stipulated that the application for the writ of habeas corpus might be taken as his answer to the return. Subsequently, on motion, that answer was stricken out by the circuit court as immaterial, the writ of habeas corpus was quashed, and Pettibone was remanded to the custody of the state.

Messrs. Edmund F. Richardson, Clarence S. Darrow, and John H. Murphy for appellant.

[Argument of Counsel from Pages 196-199 intentionally omitted] Messrs. James H. Hawley and W. E. Borah for appellee.

[Argument of Counsel from Pages 199-200 intentionally omitted] Mr. Justic

e Harlan delivered the opinion of the court:

As the application for the writ of habeas corpus was, by stipulation of the parties, taken as the answer of the accused to the return of the officer holding him in custody, and as that answer was stricken out by the court below as immaterial, we must, on this appeal, regard as true all the facts sufficiently alleged in the application, which, in a legal sense, bear upon the question whether the detention of the accused by the state authorities was in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States.

That application is too lengthy to be incorporated at large in this opinion. It is sufficient to say that its allegations present the case of a conspiracy between the governors of Idaho and Colorado, and the respective officers and agents of those states, to have the accused taken from Colorado to Idaho under such circumstances and in such way as would deprive him, while in Colorado, of the privilege of invoking the jurisdiction of the courts there for his protection against wrongful deportation from the state,—it being alleged that the governor of Idaho, the prosecuting attorney of Canyon county, and the private counsel who advised them, well knew all the time that 'he was not in the state of Idaho on the 30th day of December, 1905, nor at any time near that date.' The application also alleged that the accused 'is not and was not a fugitive from justice; that he was not present in the state of Idaho when the alleged crime was alleged to have been committed, nor for months prior thereto, nor thereafter, until brought into the state as aforesaid.'

In the forefront of this case is the fact that the appellant is held in actual custody for trial under an indictment in one of the courts of Idaho for the crime of murder, charged to have been committed in that state, against its laws, and it is the purpose of the state to try the question of his guilt or innocence of that charge.

Undoubtedly, the circuit court had jurisdiction to discharge the appellant from the custody of the state authorities if their exercise of jurisdiction over his person would be in violation of any rights secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States. But that court had a discretion as to the time and mode in which, by the exercise of such power, it would, by its process, obstruct or delay a criminal prosecution in the state court. The duty of a Federal court to interfere, on habeas corpus, for the protection of one alleged to be restrained of his liberty in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States, must often be controlled by the special circumstances of the case; and unless in some emergency demanding prompt action, the party held in custody by a state, and seeking to be enlarged, will be left to stand his trial in the state court, which, it will be assumed, will enforce—as it has the power to do equally with a court of the United States (Robb v. Connolly, 111 U. S. 624, 637, 28 L. ed. 542, 546, 4 Sup. Ct. Rep. 544)—any right secured by the supreme law of the land. 'When the state court,' this court has said, 'shall have finally acted upon the case, the circuit court has still a discretion whether, under all the circumstances then existing, the accused, if convicted, shall be put to his writ of error from the...