Hale v. Crawford

• Decision Date: 15 June 1933
• Docket Number: No. 2824.,2824.
• Citation: 65 F.2d 739
• Parties: HALE v. CRAWFORD.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

65 F.2d 739 (1933)

HALE v. CRAWFORD.

No. 2824.

Circuit Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

June 15, 1933.

George B. Lourie, Asst. Atty. Gen. (Joseph E. Warner, Atty. Gen., S.D. Bacigalupo, Asst. Atty. Gen., and John Galleher, Dist. Atty., of Leesburg, Va., on the brief), for appellant.

J. Weston Allen and Butler R. Wilson, both of Boston, Mass., for appellee.

Before BINGHAM, WILSON, and MORTON, Circuit Judges.

BINGHAM, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from an order of the District Court for Massachusetts in a habeas corpus proceeding discharging the applicant from the custody of the respondent, who held him under the warrant of the Governor of Massachusetts in an interstate rendition proceeding, directing his return to the state of Virginia.

At the February term, 1932, of the circuit court of Loudoun county, Va., the applicant, George Crawford, a negro, was indicted for murder in two indictments. January 17, 1933, the prosecuting attorney for Loudoun county asked the Governor of Virginia to request the Governor of Massachusetts to cause Crawford to be returned to Virginia. January 18, 1933, the Governor of Virginia made such request and the Governor of Massachusetts, after a hearing, on February 18, 1933, issued his warrant authorizing the arrest of Crawford and his delivery to the duly authorized agents of Virginia. On that day the respondent arrested Crawford on the warrant and now holds him thereunder. Thereupon Crawford filed in the federal District Court for Massachusetts a petition for the writ of habeas corpus, subsequently amended April 5, 1933. A summons having been issued and served, the respondent filed his return setting up that he held Crawford under and by virtue of the warrant, to be delivered to the Virginia agents; that Crawford was the identical person named in the warrant; and denied each and every allegation of the petition. April 24, 1933, the District Court ordered the writ of habeas corpus to issue, and on that day the parties appeared before the court and were heard.

At the hearing the applicant offered in evidence an agreed statement of facts, which in substance was that, while the statutes of Virginia, prescribing the qualifications of and who should be drawn as grand jurors, did not discriminate against persons of African descent, the circuit judge for Loudoun county, designated by law to select the grand jurors, selected no persons of African descent to serve on the grand jury which returned the indictments in question, but excluded from the list all such persons because of their race and color, although there were persons of African descent in that county duly qualified to act as grand jurors. The facts stated in this agreement were offered in evidence by the applicant and admitted by the court, subject to exception. The respondent put in evidence the requisition papers of the Governor of Virginia and the rendition warrant of the Governor of Massachusetts.

The requisition papers of the Governor of Virginia contained the application of the prosecuting attorney of Virginia above referred to, copies of the indictments and the bench warrants issued thereon, a certificate that the indictments were authentic and duly authenticated according to the laws of that state, that each charged Crawford with the crime of murder, which the Governor of Virginia certified to be a crime under the laws of that state committed in the county of Loudoun, and also a certificate that the circuit court for Loudoun county was a court of general jurisdiction. It was further stated that Crawford was a fugitive from the justice of that state, had taken refuge in the state of Massachusetts, and a request was made that he be apprehended and delivered to certain persons named, who were authorized to receive and convey him to the state of Virginia.

It was agreed that Crawford, the party charged with crime in the indictments and described in the requisition warrant, was the identical person arrested and before the court, and that the evidence submitted by the respondent made a prima facie case for rendition.

Upon the case thus presented the District Court ruled that the indictments were void and ordered the applicant discharged; but remanded him to the custody of the respondent pending final determination of this appeal.

The first question to be considered is whether the court erred in admitting the evidence in regard to the discrimination by the officer of Virginia in the selection and organization of the grand jury which found the indictments. The indictments are conceded to be valid and proper on their face, and the question is whether the evidence relating to the selection and organization of the grand jury and attacking the validity of the indictments was competent.

This question, so far as we know, has not been passed on in a habeas corpus case arising out of an interstate rendition proceeding; but it has been in such cases arising out of proceedings under section 1014 of the Revised Statutes (18 USCA § 591), authorizing the arrest and removal of a person charged with crime in a federal district other than the one in which he is arrested. Greene v. Henkel, 183 U.S. 249, 261, 22 S.Ct. 218, 223, 46 L.Ed. 177. In that case the indictment was good on its face and the evidence offered attacked its validity on the ground that the grand jury which found the indictment was not made up as the law required. In discussing the admissibility of the evidence, the court said:

"We do not think that under this statute section 1014 the commissioner would be warranted in taking evidence in regard to the organization of the grand jury which found the indictment, as claimed by the defendants. The indictment is valid on its face; purports to have been found by a grand jury acting in fact as such italics ours at a regular term of a district court of the United States, presided over by one of its judges and hearing testimony in the ordinary way. In our opinion, such an indictment is prima facie good, and when a copy of it is certified by the proper officer, a magistrate, acting pursuant to § 1014 of the Revised Statutes, is justified in treating the instrument as an indictment found by a competent grand jury, and is not compelled or authorized to go into evidence which may show or tend to show violations of the United States statutes in the drawing of the jurors composing the grand jury which found the indictment." That "Matters of that nature are to be dealt with in the court where the indictment is found, and we intimate no opinion upon the merits of those questions"; that "we do not think that by this order of removal the constitutional rights of the defendants are in anywise taken from them"; that "the provision that no person may be held to answer for an infamous crime unless upon the presentment or indictment of a grand jury is not violated or infringed"; and that "if this so-called indictment be void voidable for the reasons alleged, the place to set up its invalidity is the court in which it was found."

Drew v. Thaw, 235 U.S. 432, 438, 35 S. Ct. 137, 138, 59 L.Ed. 302, was an interstate rendition case. In that case Thaw was indicted by a New York grand jury and in the indictment it was alleged that he had been committed to the Matteawan State Hospital for the insane under an order of court reciting that he had been acquitted at his trial upon a former indictment on the ground of insanity and that his discharge was deemed dangerous to public safety; that, being thus confined, he conspired with certain persons to procure his escape from the hospital and did escape, to the obstruction of justice and of the due administration of the laws. The Governor of New York made a demand upon the Governor of New Hampshire for his extradition, alleging that Thaw was a fugitive from justice, and a copy of the indictment found by the New York grand jury accompanied the demand. The Governor of New Hampshire issued a warrant for the arrest and return of Thaw, upon which he was arrested. Thaw then applied to the federal District Court for New Hampshire for a writ of habeas corpus, and the District Court, after hearing, ordered his discharge. An appeal was taken to the Supreme Court. It appeared that, by a statute of New York, under which the indictment was found, it was provided that an agreement to commit any act for the perversion or obstruction of justice or of the due administration of the laws is a misdemeanor, if an overt act beside the agreement is done to effect the object. It was held (1) that, inasmuch as the courts of New York may hold that "the withdrawal, by connivance, of a man from an insane asylum, to which he had been committed as Thaw was, did tend to obstruct the due administration of the law," the indictment charged a crime; (2) that, if the conspiracy constituted a crime, there was no doubt that Thaw was a fugitive from justice; and (3) as to the contention that "if he Thaw was insane when he contrived his escape, he could not be guilty of crime, while if he was not insane, he was entitled to be discharged" and that his confinement and other facts required the court to assume that he was insane, the court held that this was not Thaw's trial, that in extradition proceedings the purpose of the writ of habeas corpus was "not to substitute the judgment of another tribunal upon the facts or the law of the matter to be tried," that the question of the sufficiency of the indictment was not open, and that, if the contention above stated "offers a nice question, it is a question as to the law of New York which the New York courts must decide." In concluding its opinion the court said:

"When, as here, the identity of the person, the fact that he is a fugitive from justice, the demand in due form, the indictment by a grand jury for what it and the governor of New York allege to be a crime in that state, and the reasonable possibility that it may be such, all appear, the constitutionally required surrender is not to be...