In re Lane
| Decision Date | 28 April 1890 |
| Citation | 10 S.Ct. 760,135 U.S. 443,34 L.Ed. 219 |
| Parties | In re LANE |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Wm. M. Randolph, A. H. Garland, and Heber J. May, for petitioner.
Sol. Gen. Taft, for respondent.
This is a petition by Charles Mason Lane, addressed to the original jurisdiction of this court, for a writ of habeas corpus. Upon the filing of the petition a rule was issued upon Charles H. Case, warden of the penitentiary of the state of Kansas, who, it was alleged, held the petitioner in unlawful imprisonment. Case made a return to this rule, in which he said that the prisoner was held under a mittimus issued from the office of the clerk of the district court of the United States in and for the district of Kansas, and accompanying the return was a certified copy of the proceedings in that court under which Lane was held. From this it appears that the following indictment was found in that court at its September term, 1889:
. Under the plea of not guilty a trial was had on this indictment in which the jury rendered the following verdict: 'We, the jury in the above-entitled cause, duly impaneled and sworn upon our oaths find the defendant guilty of carnal and unlawful knowledge of Frances M. Skeed, a female under the age of sixteen years, as charged in the indictment.' A motion for a new trial and in arrest of judgment was made, heard, and overruled, and the following sentence pronounced by the court:
Thereupon, it is now by the court here considered, ordered, and adjudged that said defendant be imprisoned in the Kansas penitentiary for the period of five years. It is further ordered that the marshal deliver, or cause to be delivered, the body of said Charles Lane to the warden of said penitentiary within ten days from this date.' Some kind of certificate appears to have been made after this to transfer the case to the circuit court of the United States, where it came before BREWER, circuit judge, who delivered an opinion in it concurring informally with the judgment of the district court, which is found as an appendix to the brief of the counsel for the government.
The counsel for petitioner has argued the case before us as if every error that may possibly be found in the ruling of the district court in the progress of the case was a sufficient ground to release the prisoner on this writ of habeas corpus. It has been often reiterated in this court that the writ of habeas corpus cannot be converted into a writ of error, and that this court, when asked to issue a writ of habeas corpus as of its original jurisdiction, can do so only when the inferior court has acted without jurisdiction, or has exceeded its powers to the prejudice of the party seeking relief.
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...also been held that the improper signing of an indictment is not such a defect as would invalidate the instrument; In re Lane, 135 U.S. 443, 449, 10 S.Ct. 760, 34 L.Ed. 219; Miller v. United States, 6 Cir., 300 F. 529, 536, certiorari denied, 266 U.S. 624, 45 S.Ct. 123, 69 L.Ed. 474; King v......
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