Kent v. Miles

• Decision Date: 31 January 1897
• Citation: 37 A. 1115,69 Vt. 379
• Parties: KENT v. MILES.
• Court: Vermont Supreme Court

37 A. 1115

69 Vt. 379

KENT

v. MILES.

Supreme Court of Vermont. Washington.

Jan. Term, 1897.

Exceptions from Washington county court; Taft, Judge.

Action by James M. Kent against L. D. Miles. Plea, the general issue and special plea of justification. Replication, de injuria. Verdict directed for defendant. Plaintiff excepts. Affirmed.

T. J. Deavitt, W. W. Lapoint, and John W. Gordon, for plaintiff.

W. W. Miles, for defendant.

TYLER, J. Action, trespass for false imprisonment. It appears that the plaintiff was indicted for perjury at the September term, 1887, of Orleans county court; that a bill of indictment was returned into court, and filed on the 14th of the same September; that a warrant for the plaintiffs arrest was then issued, but was not delivered to the defendant until October 5th, several days after the close of that term. The defendant, as sheriff of the county, arrested the plaintiff at Montpelier, in the county of Washington, on the day he received the warrant, and on the following day took him, and committed him to the jail in Orleans county. On the 7th of October, the defendant released him from custody, but rearrested him on the same day, upon another warrant issued on that day by the clerk of Orleans county court. It is for these alleged arrests and the confinement that the plaintiff seeks to recover damages. It was held in Durant's Case, 60 Vt. 176, 12 Atl. 650, that the clerk might issue a warrant in vacation for the arrest of a person against whom an indictment had been found. Therefore there can be no question as to his right to deliver to an officer in vacation a warrant issued in term time. The direction in the warrant was to apprehend the body of the plaintiff, and have him forthwith to appear before the county court in and for said county of Orleans, at Newport, to answer, etc. It was held in Kent v. Miles, 68 Vt. 48, 33 Atl. 768, that, the court not being in session when the defendant arrived at Newport with the plaintiff, it was the defendant's duty, under the warrant, to keep and detain him until the court again convened, and that he could law fully commit him to jail for safe-keeping. That decision is conclusive of the legality of the arrest and commitment on the first warrant In re Miles, 52 Vt. 609. The case is not controlled by V. S. § 1701, which relates to service of legal process where the officer is directed by the process to commit to jail. Durant's Case is full authority as to the legality of the arrest and...