State of West Virginia v. Laing

• Decision Date: 15 November 1904
• Docket Number: 528.
• Citation: 133 F. 887
• Parties: STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA v. LAING et al.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Fourth Circuit

133 F. 887

STATE OF WEST VIRGINIA v. LAING et al.

No. 528.

United States Court of Appeals, Fourth Circuit.

November 15, 1904

John H Holt, S.C. Burdett (Romeo H. Freer and T.J. McGinnis, on the brief), for the State.

J.W St. Clair, W.R. Thompson (C.W. Dillon, W.H. McGinnis on the brief), for appellees.

Before GOFF, Circuit Judge, and MORRIS and PURNELL, District Judges.

GOFF Circuit Judge.

This case is here from the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of West Virginia, the appellant insisting that there is error in the order of that court entered on the 11th day of December, 1903, discharging from arrest and imprisonment the appellees, John D. Laing and Stewart Hurt. From the petitions filed in their behalf praying for the writs of habeas corpus, the returns thereto and the exhibits filed therewith, it appears that at the March term, 1903, of the Circuit Court for said district, one John Harless was indicted, charged with a violation of section 5398 of the Revised Statutes of the United States [U.S.Comp.St.1901, p. 3655], in that he had resisted certain officers of the United States while they were engaged in the discharge of their official duties; that a capias for his arrest had been duly issued from said court and regularly placed in the hands of Daniel W. Cunningham and Walter C. Summers, deputy United States marshals for that district; that said officers proceeded to the county of Raleigh, in said district, where Harless resided, for the purpose of arresting him, and that to assist them in executing the process mentioned they summoned Quincy George, John D. Laing, and Stewart Hurt, citizens residing in that locality, as a posse comitatus; that on April 21, 1903, the said five mentioned parties, with the capias in the hands of the officers mentioned, proceeded to the house in the county of Raleigh where Harless resided, for the purpose of arresting him; that the appellees were directed by the officers to approach from the rear the house in which Harless was then supposed to be, the said marshals and the remaining member of the posse proceeding so as to reach it at the front thereof; that Harless, observing the coming of the officers, left the house by the rear door, and ran in the direction of the appellees, carrying in his hand a pistol, and that when he was about 90 yards from them, they, seeing him so advancing and so carrying the pistol, called to him to halt, which he did not do, but continued to approach until he was within close pistol range of them, when they again commanded him to stop and surrender, but he, refusing to do so, turned towards a large tree which was a short distance from him, when the appellees, believing that he was seeking shelter of the tree from which to fire on them, near the same moment both of them fired at him, one of the shots passing through his body near the heart, producing death; that the appellees were soon thereafter arrested by a constable of Raleigh county, on a warrant charging them with feloniously shooting and murdering the said Harless, and that they were on the 28th day of April, 1903, indicted by the grand jury of that county for feloniously killing him; that they were committed to the jail in said county to await trial on such charge, and that while so confined writs of habeas corpus were at their instance sued out, requiring the sheriff of that county to produce the appellees before the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of West Virginia, in order that the cause of their imprisonment and detention might be inquired into, they claiming that in the shooting and killing of Harless, under the circumstances mentioned, they had violated no law of the state of West Virginia, but had, on the contrary, lawfully discharged their duties as members of the posse comitatus referred to.

After due return had been made to the writs of habeas corpus, and after the petitioners had been brought before it by said sheriff, the court below, with the consent of the parties, ordered that the questions raised by the two petitions should, as they both related to the same transaction, be heard together. The petitioners then offered the testimony of 12 witnesses in their behalf, and 13 witnesses were examined in behalf of the respondent; certain documentary evidence, including the transcripts of the proceedings in the circuit court of Raleigh county, and in the Circuit Court for the Southern District of West Virginia, relating to said matter, were also offered in evidence, and the argument of counsel fully heard; after which the judge presiding entered an order discharging the petitioners, when the state of West Virginia prayed a review by this court of the proceedings so had in the court below.

The points involved in the assignments of error may be stated as follows: First, had the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of West Virginia jurisdiction of said petitions? Second, were the petitions so drawn as to authorize the court below to issue the writs of habeas corpus asked for? Third, did the facts alleged and substantiated by the testimony show that the petitioners were justified in killing Harless?

That the court below had jurisdiction and was authorized to issue the writs is shown by section 753 of the Revised Statutes of the United States [U.S.Comp.St.1901, p. 592], which expressly permits that court to issue the writ of habeas corpus in such cases, and to discharge the petitioners, if it be found that they are imprisoned, on account of acts which they were empowered to do under the laws of the United States. Tennessee v. Davis, 100 U.S. 257, 25 L.Ed. 648; In re Neagle, 135 U.S. 1, 10 Sup.Ct. 658, 34 L.Ed. 55; In re Burrus, 136 U.S. 586, 10 Sup.Ct. 850, 34 L.Ed. 1500; Logan v. United States, 144 U.S. 263, 12 Sup.Ct. 617, 36 L.Ed. 429; Virginia v. Paul, 148 U.S. 107, 13 Sup.Ct. 536, 37 L.Ed. 386; In re Quarles and Butler, 158 U.S. 532, 15 Sup.Ct. 959, 39 L.Ed. 1080; Storti v. Massachusetts, 183 U.S. 138, 22 Sup.Ct. 72, 46 L.Ed. 120.

The motions to quash were properly overruled, for the petitions presented such cases as required the court to make inquiry concerning the detention and imprisonment of the petitioners. On such motions the allegations of the petition will be taken as true, and where they charge, as these petitions do, that the petitioners were duly summoned to aid in the execution of a writ of capias, which had been regularly issued by a court of the United States, and that their imprisonment is because of an act done by them in the lawful discharge of such duty, then, in obedience to the requirements of the statute mentioned, the court should at once issue the writ of habeas corpus, and, if on the hearing the proof offered sustains such allegations, should promptly discharge the parties so imprisoned.

The disposition of the remaining point raised by the assignments of error requires the careful analysis of all the testimony offered on the hearing below....