Ida May Innes v. John Tobin

• Decision Date: 21 February 1916
• Docket Number: No. 532,532
• Citation: 60 L.Ed. 562,240 U.S. 127,36 S.Ct. 290
• Parties: IDA MAY INNES, Plff. in Err., v. JOHN W. TOBIN, Sheriff of Bexar County, Texas
• Court: U.S. Supreme Court

240 U.S. 127

36 S.Ct. 290

60 L.Ed. 562

IDA MAY INNES, Plff. in Err.,

v JOHN W. TOBIN, Sheriff of Bexar County, Texas.

No. 532.

Argued January 6, 1916.

Decided February 21, 1916.

[Argument of Counsel from pages 127-129 intentionally omitted] Messrs. Hugh M. Dorsey and C. C. McDonald Ward for plaintiff in error.

Messrs. Hugh M. Dorsey and C. C. McDonald for defendant in error.

Mr. Chief Justice White delivered the opinion of the court:

The governor of Oregon honored a requisition made by the governor of Texas for the delivery of the plaintiff in error for removal to Texas as a fugitive from the justice of that state. The accused was taken to Texas, tried for murder and a conspiracy to commit murder, and acquitted. She was, however, not released from custody because she was ordered by the governor of Texas, under a requisition of the governor of Georgia, to be held for delivery to an agent of the state of Georgia for removal to that state as a fugitive from justice.

Alleging these facts, an application for release by habeas corpus was then presented to a state court upon the charge that the extradition proceedings and the warrant of removal thereunder were 'wholly null and void' because 'your petitioner was never a fugitive from justice from the state of Georgia to the state of Texas within the meaning and intent of the laws of the United States regulating extradition proceedings.' On the return to the writ, the court, finding the facts to be as above stated, refused to discharge the petitioner, and the case is before us to review a judgment of the court of criminal appeals, which adopted the findings of the trial court and affirmed its action. ——Tex. Crim. Rep. ——, L.R.A. ——, ——, 173 S. W. 291.

All the Federal questions involve the meaning of § 2 of article 4 of the Constitution, which is as follows: 'A person charged in any state with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice and be found in another state, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the state from which he fled, be delivered up, to be removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime.' They also depend on § 5278 of the Revised Statutes, which is but a reproduction of § 1 of the act of February 12, 1793 (chap. 7, 1 Stat. at L. 302, Comp. Stat. 1913, § 10,126), giving effect to and establishing the methods of procedure to be resorted to for the purpose of enforcing the provisions of the Constitution on the subject to the extent that their execution was by the statute provided for.

Broadly, there is but a single question for consideration: Was the order for rendition repugnant to the Constitution and the provisions of the statute? But two inquiries are involved in its solution: First, was the rendition order void because, under the facts, there was no power to award it except by disregarding express prohibitions or requirements of the Constitution or statute, or by necessary implication adversely affecting rights thereby created? and second, even although this was not the case, was the order nevertheless void because, under the circumstances, it dealt with a situation which, by the effect of the statute, was taken out of the reach of state authority, even although no express provision was made in the statute for dealing with such condition by any authority, state or Federal? We consider the two inquiries under separate headings.

First. For the purpose of the solution of the inquiry under this heading we treat the following propositions as beyond question: (a) That prior to the adoption of the Constitution fugitives from justice were surrendered between the states conformably to what were deemed to be the controlling principles of comity. Kentucky v. Dennison, 24 How. 66, 101, 102, 16 L. ed. 717, 727; 2 Moore, Extradition & Interstate Rendition, pp. 820 et seq. (b) That it was intended by the provision of the Constitution to fully embrace or rather to confer authority upon Congress to deal with such subject. Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 16 Pet. 539, 10 L. ed. 1060; Kentucky v. Dennison, supra; Taylor v. Taintor, 16 Wall. 366, 21 L. ed. 287; Appleyard v. Massachusetts, 203 U. S. 222, 51 L. ed. 161, 27 Sup. Ct. Rep. 122, 7 Ann. Cas. 1073; (c) That the act of 1793 (now Revised Statutes, § 5278, Comp. Stat. 1913, § 10,126) was enacted for the purpose of controlling the subject in so far as it was deemed wise to do so, and that its provisions were intended to be dominant, and, so far as they operated, controlling and exclusive of state power. Prigg v. Pennsylvania, 16 Pet. 539, 10 L. ed. 1060; Kentucky v. Dennison, 24 How. 104, 105, 16 L. ed. 728; Mahon v. Justice, 127 U. S. 700, 32 L. ed. 283, 8 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1204; Lascelles v. Georgia, 148 U. S. 537, 37 L. ed. 549, 13 Sup. Ct. Rep. 687.

Coming in the light of these principles to apply the statute, it is not open to question that its provisions expressly or by necessary implication prohibited the surrender of a person in one state for removal as a fugitive to another where it clearly appears that the person was not and could not have been a fugitive from the justice of the demanding state. Ex parte Reggel, 114 U. S. 642, 29 L. ed. 250, 5 Sup. Ct. Rep. 1148, 5 Am. Crim. Rep. 218; Roberts v. Reilly, 116 U. S. 80, 29 L. ed. 544, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 291; Hyatt v. New York, 188 U. S. 691, 47 L. ed. 657, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 456, 12 Am. Crim. Rep. 311; Bassing v. Cady, 208 U. S. 386, 392, 52 L. ed. 540, 543, 28 Sup. Ct. Rep. 392, 13 Ann. Cas. 905.

From this it results that the first inquiry here is, did it appear that the accused was a fugitive from the justice of the state of Georgia? While the facts which we have stated do not disclose affirmatively that she was ever in Georgia, and the date, if at all, of her flight from that state, we think that she was such a fugitive is to be assumed for three obvious reasons: because there was no question of such fact made in the application for habeas corpus, since it is apparent on the face of the application that the ground of relief relied upon was not that there had been no flight from Georgia, but that there was and could have been no flight into Texas, since the coming into that state was involuntary and resulted solely from the extradition proceedings; because that view of the subject was assumed, both in the elaborate opinion of the court below and that of the dissenting judge, to be unquestioned; and finally, because neither in the assignments of error in this court nor in the arguments pressed upon our attention is the contrary view insisted upon or even suggested. From that aspect, therefore, there is no ground for saying that the extradition order conflicted with the express provision of the statute.

Was there a conflict between the statute and the order for...