State v. Sparks

• Decision Date: 01 January 1864
• Citation: 27 Tex. 705
• Parties: THE STATE v. J. H. SPARKS AND J. BANKHEAD MAGRUDER.
• Court: Texas Supreme Court

27 Tex. 705

THE STATE

v.J. H. SPARKS AND J. BANKHEAD MAGRUDER.

Supreme Court of Texas.

1864.

By the production of a prisoner under a writ of habeas corpus, the court acquires absolute jurisdiction of the person of the applicant, and the original cause of commitment is suspended until the case is disposed of.

When the criminality of an act depends solely upon the intention with which it was done, the ignorance of the party charged, or his inability to obtain proper information, may be considered in determining the question of guilt; but the forcible interference with and defiance of the lawful authority of a civil court is a crime irrespective of the intention of the party who commits it; and the plea of ignorance is wholly inadmissible.

The act of the Confederate congress suspending the writ of habeas corpus in certain cases did not constitute, under any possible state of facts, a justification of the defendants in taking the law into their own hands and defying the process of the court.

That act did not authorize the delegation of the powers conferred upon the commanding general of the trans-Mississippi department.

Neither did that act forbid or suspend the issuance of the writ, which should still have issued, unless it was apparent from the application itself that the relief could not be granted. In all cases it was the duty of the party to whom the writ was directed to answer to it, so as to manifest whether the case was one in which the privilege of the writ was or was not suspended by the act.

ORIGINAL ATTACHMENT for contempt. Tried before the supreme court.

The facts of this case are sufficiently collated in the opinions delivered by the court upon the first and at the present hearing. For a report of the first hearing, reference is made to page 627 of this volume.

J. H. Sparks and J. B. Magruder, for themselves.

MOORE, J.

This case was transferred to this place from Austin to afford the defendant Magruder an opportunity of filing an answer, in obedience to an order of the court then made upon him. His answer is now before us, and we therefore proceed to make a final disposition of the case. The preliminary facts out of which this proceeding has originated are sufficiently stated for the proper understanding of the action of the court in the opinion which was delivered in it at Austin, and need not be here again repeated. At that time we felt constrained to say from the facts then disclosed, that Maj. Gen. Magruder was apparently guilty of a palpable and glaring violation of law and contempt of this court. We trusted, however, that it was only necessary to give Maj. Gen. Magruder an opportunity of being heard, to relieve him from so disreputable an imputation, and the court from the painful duty of pronouncing the highest military officer of this department guilty of using the authority with which he has been entrusted for the public welfare and the defense of the state, as a means of violating the law, interfering with and contemning the authority and process of its courts, and thus violating social order, which he should have been the first to have upheld and sustained. We have, however, we regret to say, been wholly disappointed in this just expectation. The answer of Maj. Gen. Magruder, instead of exculpating him, places him, if possible, in a still more unenviable light than did the facts previously developed in the record. Before reading his answer, it might have been supposed that his violation of the authority of the court and interference with its functions was not the result of premeditation and design, or the assumption of an authority plainly at war with the most obvious and best settled principles of law and judicial procedure.

The pretext upon which Maj. Gen. Magruder undertakes to justify his interference with, and attempting to set at naught the authority of the court, is mainly upon the startling ground that the court does not acquire jurisdiction of the persons of the applicants for a writ of habeas corpus, pending the hearing on its return. That the extent of the power he claims for himself, and the restrictions he assumes to place upon the authority of the court in the discharge of its duties, when its functions are invoked by this great writ for the security of personal liberty, may be more readily perceived, we make the following extracts from his answer.

“The major general commanding was not aware that these persons had passed out of the hands of the military authorities when they were brought before the supreme court upon the writ of habeascorpus; nor did he intend, when they were brought before that tribunal, to yield them to the entire control of the civil powers, until it had been decided that they were illegally arrested, and unlawfully in the possession of the authorities restraining them of their liberty. The mandate of the court required the prisoners to be brought before it, and the parties detaining them to show by what authority, etc. The prisoners were brought, and the proper returns were made, and the major general commanding supposed that he had virtually the possession of the prisoners, and the honorable court before whom they were brought should decide whether or not they were properly and legally in possession of the military authorities. The idea that the parties suing out the writ of habeas corpus were to be entirely under the control and direction of the supreme court, and entirely free from the control of the military authorities as soon as they were brought before that tribunal, was one which the major general commanding could not entertain; nor did he contemplate that the guard which he had ordered to accompany these men from San Antonio to Austin, in obedience to the mandate of the supreme court, had left the prisoners in the hands of the sheriff of Travis county, and returned to San Antonio, until made acquainted with the fact by Maj. Sparks, commanding post at Austin.”

In another part of the answer he says: “This was the view taken by the major general commanding, and he did not suppose that the prisoners had been transferred from his custody to that of the civil authorities, but that he was only liable in case they were not before the court, when required and necessary to be there pending the trial or investigation of the case. The law holds the party restraining another of his liberty responsible for his act, if the restraint be illegal, but it does not take the prisoner out of his custody until the illegality is determined.”

Again he subsequently says: “An official copy of the law of congress suspending the writ of habeas corpus having been received at these headquarters, and under it and in accordance with its provisions Lieut. Gen. E. Kirby Smith, commanding department trans-Mississippi, having ordered the major general commanding to detain the prisoners heretofore alluded to, an order was dispatched forthwith to Maj. Sparks (whom the major general commanding believed to be in possession of the prisoners, the guard from San Antonio having returned home, and the commander of the post at Austin having been ordered to guard the said prisoners), directing him to bring Messrs. Peebles, Baldwin, Zinke, Hildebrand and Seeliger away from Austin under a sufficient guard, and to disregard ‘the present writ of habeas corpus, or any writ which may subsequently be issued.’ 'DD'

We will not pause to cavil with the seemingly contradictory statements shown in these extracts from Major General Magruder's answer. It is immaterial at present to inquire whether he knew, as he says he was informed by Major Sparks, that the prisoners had been placed in charge of the sheriff, or supposed that they were still under the control of his subordinate officers, as he insists should have been the case. The prisoners, he evidently intends to insist in point of right, if not in fact, were under his control; that they did...