People ex rel. Corkran v. Hyatt

• Citation: 172 N.Y. 176,64 N.E. 825
• Parties: PEOPLE ex rel. CORKRAN v. HYATT, Chief of Police.
• Decision Date: 07 October 1902
• Court: New York Court of Appeals Court of Appeals

172 N.Y. 176

64 N.E. 825

PEOPLE ex rel. CORKRAN

v.HYATT, Chief of Police.

Court of Appeals of New York.

Oct. 7, 1902.

Appeal from supreme court, appellate division, Third department.

Application by the people, on the relation of Charles E. Corkran, for a writ of habeas corpus against James L. Hyatt, chief of police of the city of Albany. From an order of the appellate division (76 N. Y. Supp. 1026) affirming an order dismissing the writ and remanding the relator to custody, he appeals. Reversed.

Haight and Werner, JJ., dissenting.

Adelbert Moot and William L. Marcy, for appellant.

J. Murray Downs and Robert G. Scherer, for respondent.

CULLEN, J.

The relator was arrested and held under a mandate or warrant of the governor of this state issued on the requisition of the governor of the state of Tennessee for the delivery of the relator as a fugitive from justice. The mandate of the governor recites that it has been represented to him that the relator stands charged in the state of Tennessee with having committed the crime of larceny and false pretenses in the county of Davidson, and that he had fled from said state and taken refuge in the state of New York. By stipulation between the parties it was conceded that the indictments attached to the requisition papers under which the governor issued his warrant were found on the 26th day of February, 1902, and that the alleged crimes charged in the indictments were committed on May 1, 1901, May 8, 1901, and June 24, 1901, respectively. At the hearing had on the return of the writ of habeas corpus it was further stipulated between the parties that the relator was not in the state of Tennessee at the time of the commission of any of the offenses charged against him, but in the state of Maryland, which was his residence. It appeared by his testimony that he went to Nashville, in Tennessee, on the 2d day of July, 1901, to accept the resignation of one Albright, the president and treasurer of the American Hardwood Company, in which the relator was interested, and was then elected president of the company in said Albright's stead; that that evening he left Nashville, and never was again in the state of Tennessee, except passing through there on the 16th or 17th of July. It is not claimed that the offenses for which the extradition of the relator was sought were committed when he was in the state of Tennessee, but it is contended that, though not corporeally present at the time of the commission of the offense, he may nevertheless be properly surrendered as a fugitive from the justice of that state where it was committed.

It is to be premised that the power of a government to punish for extraterritorial crimes is a very different question from that of its right to require the surrender to it from foreign countries, for trial and punishment, persons alleged to have committed such offenses. Some governments assume to impose the obligations of their penal laws, either in whole or part, on their citizens, no matter where they may be. We have a notable example of this rule in the recent punishment of a British peer for an alleged bigamy committed in the United States. Some governments assume to go even further, and punish an alien for an offense committed against their citizens, though the offense is committed in a foreign jurisdiction. Publicists and writers on international law differ greatly as to the right of a government to punish for offenses committed without its territory. A full review of this subject is to be found in the work of Mr. John Bassett Moore, late assistant secretary of state of the United States, on ‘Extraterritorial Crime.’ The power of any government to punish for such an offense necessarily depends upon its ability to obtain possession of the defendant; and, though each government assumes to define its own powers, still it may be restrained by the action of the government of which the offender is a citizen, invoked on his behalf, as was the case in the controversy between this country and Mexico in relation to which the report of Mr. Moore was written. Not so with extradition between the states of the Union. It is not governed by international law, but depends solely on the provisions of the constitution of the United States and the act of congress made from it. The power of a state to punish a fugitive from justice after obtaining custody of his person depends in no way on how that custody was obtained. Even if the offender has been kidnapped in another state and brought within the territory of the prosecuting state, that fact does not affect the jurisdiction of the latter to punish him for the offense. Ker v. Illinois, 119 U. S. 436, 7 Sup. Ct. 225, 30 L. Ed. 421;Cook v. Hart, 146 U. S. 183, 13 Sup. Ct. 40, 36 L. Ed. 934. Nor will a person be relieved from prosecution at the intervention of the state from which he was abducted by violence. Mahon v. Justice, 127 U. S. 700, 8 Sup. Ct. 1204, 32 L. Ed. 283. In Lascelles v. Georgia, 148 U. S. 537, 13 Sup. Ct. 687, 37 L. Ed. 549, it was said: ‘If the fugitive be regarded as not lawfully within the limits of the state in respect to any other crime than the one on which his surrender was effected, still that fact does not defeat the jurisdiction of its courts to try him for other offenses, any more than if he had been brought within such jurisdiction forcibly and without any legal process whatever.’ It was there held that interstate rendition did not depend on comity or contract, but on the provisions of the constitution of the United States. It will thus be seen that the condition of a citizen of one state, surrendered to another for criminal prosecution, has not the safeguards which exist in international extradition, for the surrendering state is without any standing to intervene in his behalf, however much its process may have been abused. Therefore it necessarily follows that no person can or should be extradited from one state to another unless the case falls within the constitutional provision, and that the power which independent nations have to surrender criminals to other nations as a matter of favor or comity is not possessed by the states.

The provision of the constitution of the United States (article 4, § 2, subd. 2) is: ‘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.’ Under this, congress has enacted (section 5278, Rev. St.): ‘Whenever the executive authority of any state or territory demands any person as a fugitive from justice, of the executive authority of any state or territory to which such person has fled, and produces a copy of an indictment found or an affidavit * * * charging the person demanded with having committed treason, felony, or other crime, certified as authentic by the governor or chief magistrate of the state or territory from whence the person so charged has fled, it shall be the duty of the executive authority of the state or territory to which such person has fled to cause him to be arrested * * * and to cause the fugitive to be delivered * * *.’ It will be seen that, to authorize or require a state to surrender to another state an alleged offender, it is necessary not only that such person shall stand charged with crime, but that he shall flee from justice. What constitutes a fugitive from justice has been the subject of much discussion by eminent text-writers, and of many decisions by the courts and by the governors of the several states. There seems to be substantial unanimity in all the authorities on one proposition,-that, to be a fugitive from justice, a person must have been corporeally present in the demanding state at the time of the commission of the alleged crime. ‘The case, and the only case, for which the constitution provides, is that of a person who is charged with crime in one state, and who flees to and is found in another state. This is the whole of the case.’ Spear, Extradition, 311. ‘The question of constructive presence at the commission of a crime has frequently arisen in the case of obtaining money or goods by false pretenses, and it has been held that such presence in the demanding state is not sufficient as a basis for a requisition for the surrender of a person as a fugitive from justice, although, if the person charged were to come within the jurisdiction of that state, he might be arrested and punished for the false pretenses there committed while he was corporeally elsewhere.’ Moore, Extradition, § 584. In Ex parte Reggel, 114 U. S. 642, 5 Sup. Ct. 1148, 29 L. Ed. 250, it was said by Mr. Justice Harlan: ‘Undoubtedly, the act of congress did not impose upon the executive authority of the territory the duty of surrendering the appellant, unless it was made to appear in some proper way that he was a fugitive from justice. In other words, the appellant was entitled, under the act of congress, to insist upon proof that he was within the demanding state at the time he is alleged to have committed the crime charged, and subsequently withdrew from her jurisdiction, so that he could not be reached by her criminal process.’ In Roberts v. Reilly, 116 U. S. 80, 6 Sup. Ct. 291, 29 L. Ed. 544, it is said by Mr. Justice Matthews: ‘To be a fugitive from justice, in the sense of the act of congress regulating the subject under consideration, it is not necessary that the party charged should have left the state in which the crime is alleged to have been committed, after an indictment found, or for the purpose of avoiding a prosecution anticipated or begun, but simply that, having within a state committed that which by its laws constitutes a crime, when he is sought to be subjected to its criminal process to answer for his offense he has left its jurisdiction, and is found within the territory of another.’ It ...