Tarble Case

• Citation: 13 Wall. 397,20 L.Ed. 597,80 U.S. 397
• Parties: TARBLE'S CASE
• Decision Date: 01 December 1871
• Court: United States Supreme Court

80 U.S. 397

20 L.Ed. 597

13 Wall. 397

TARBLE'S CASE.

December Term, 1871

ERROR to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

This was a proceeding on habeas corpus for the discharge of one Edward Tarble, held in the custody of a recruiting officer of the United States as an enlisted soldier, on the alleged ground that he was a minor, under the age of eighteen years at the time of his enlistment, and that he enlisted without the consent of his father.

The writ was issued on the 10th of August, 1869, by a court commissioner of Dane County, Wisconsin, an officer authorized by the laws of that State to issue the writ of habeas corpus upon the petition of parties imprisoned or restrained of their liberty, or of persons on their behalf. It was issued in this case upon the petition of the father of Tarble, in which he alleged that his son, who had enlisted under the name of Frank Brown, was confined and restrained of his liberty by Lieutenant Stone, of the United States army, in the city of Madison, in that State and county; that the cause of his confinement and restraint was that he had, on the 20th of the preceding July, enlisted, and been mustered into the military service of the United States; that he was under the age of eighteen years at the time of such enlistment; that the same was made without the knowledge, consent, or approval of the petitioner; and was, therefore, as the petitioner was advised and believed, illegal; and that the petitioner was lawfully entitled to the custody, care, and services of his son.

The writ was directed to the officer thus named, commanding him to have Tarble, together with the cause of his imprisonment and detention, before the commissioner, at the latter's office, in the city of Madison, immediately after the receipt of the writ.

The officer thereupon produced Tarble before the commissioner and made a return in writing to the writ, protesting that the commissioner had no jurisdiction in the premises, and stating, as the authority and cause for the detention of the prisoner, that he, the officer, was a first lieutenant in the army of the United States, and by due authority was detailed as a recruiting officer at the city of Madison, in the State of Wisconsin, and as such officer had the custody and command of all soldiers recruited for the army at that city that on the 27th of July preceding, the prisoner, under the name of Frank Brown, was regularly enlisted as a soldier in the army of the United States for the period of five years, unless sooner discharged by proper authority; that he then duly took the oath required in such case by law and the regulations of the army, in which oath he declared that he was of the age of twenty-one years, and thereby procured his enlistment, and was on the same day duly mustered into the service of the United States; that subsequently he deserted the service, and being retaken was then in custody and confinement under charges of desertion, awaiting trial by the proper military authorities.

To this return the petitioner filed a reply, denying, on information and belief, that the prisoner was ever duly or lawfully enlisted or mustered as a soldier into the army of the United States, or that he had declared on oath that he was of the age of twenty-one years, and alleging that the prisoner was at the time of his enlistment under the age of eighteen years, and on information and belief that he was enticed into the enlistment, which was without the knowledge, consent, or approval of the petitioner; that the only oath taken by the prisoner at the time of his enlistment was an oath of allegiance; and that the petitioner was advised and believed that the prisoner was not, and never had been, a deserter from the military service of the United States.

On the 12th of August, to which day the hearing of the petition was adjourned, the commissioner proceeded to take the testimony of different witnesses produced before him, which related principally to the enlistment of the prisoner, the declarations which he made as to his age, and the oath he took at the time, his alleged desertion, the charges against him, his actual age, and the absence of any consent to the enlistment on the part of his father.

The commissioner, after argument, held that the prisoner was illegally imprisoned and detained by Lieutenant Stone, and commanded that officer forthwith to discharge him from custody.

Afterwards, in September of the same year, that officer applied to the Supreme Court of the State for a certiorari, setting forth in his application the proceedings before the commissioner and his ruling thereon. The certiorari was allowed, and in obedience to it the proceedings had before the commissioner were returned to the Supreme Court. These proceedings consisted of the petition for the writ, the return of the officer, the reply of the petitioner, and the testimony, documentary and parol, produced before the commissioner.

Upon these proceedings the case was duly argued before the Supreme Court, and in April, 1870, that tribunal pronounced its judgment, affirming the order of the commissioner discharging the prisoner. This judgment was now before this court for examination on writ of error prosecuted by the United States.

The opinion of the court below was sent up with the transcript of the record in the case. It went largely and elaborately into the grounds of its judgment. The sacredness of the right to personal liberty, and 'the high, searching, and imperative character' of the writ of habeas corpus were presented and enforced. The right of any State court to liberate a party in custody under sentence of the Federal courts, when such Federal court had jurisdiction, was not, indeed, asserted, even where the Federal court might err in what it did; but, contrariwise, such right by any State court was disclaimed. But the right of the State courts to decide whether the Federal court had jurisdiction to pass upon the subject at all, was considered by the court below as perfectly within its competence to pass upon; and, if on full consideration of the case, the State court was satisfied that the Federal court had no jurisdiction at all in the matter, in such a case the court below asserted that the duty of the State court was to disregard what the Federal court had done. The court below, in illustration of its position, said:

'This court (the Supreme Court of Wisconsin), in a civil suit, recently passed on the jurisdiction of the Federal court to render a decree for the sale of a railroad on the foreclosure of a mortgage. There was no suggestion from any quarter that in doing so it was exercising any unwarrantable or unusual power, or assuming any authority to control, revise, or annul the judgments of that court. Nor was it. It is a power constantly exercised by all courts. But it is precisely the same power that is exercised in a proceeding by habeas corpus when the validity of a judgment under which the party is imprisoned is drawn in question. A judgment in a civil suit disposes of the title to property. A judgment in a criminal suit disposes of the prisoner's right to liberty. A civil suit involving the title to that property is the appropriate proceeding in which the jurisdiction of the court to render the one judgment may be drawn in question collaterally. A proceeding by habeas corpus may appropriately have the same effect as to the other. But the right of the State court to decide on the validity of the judgment in the latter case is as clear as its right in the former. It rests upon the same principles and stands or falls by the same reasoning.'

Mr. B. H. Bristow, Solicitor-General, contra, and for the United States, cited as conclusive the cases of Ableman v. Booth and United States v. Booth, in this court,¹ in which cases the action of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin—the same court to which the writ of error in the present case had gone—in disregarding the action of the Federal courts or their officers under the act of Congress known as the Fugitive Slave Law—because, as the Wisconsin court held, the act was unconstitutional and void, and could therefore give the Federal court no jurisdiction—was overruled, and itself held unconstitutional and void.

The present case, Mr. Bristow argued, was covered in principle by the decisions cited, and those decisions had been applied in instance by several State courts to the case of an enlisted soldier in the army of the United States.²

Mr. Justice FIELD, after stating the case, delivered the opinion of the court, as follows:

The important question is presented by this case, whether a State court commissioner has jurisdiction, upon habeas corpus, to inquire into the validity of the enlistment of soldiers into the military service of the United States, and to discharge them from such service when, in his judgment, their enlistment has not been made in conformity with the laws of the United States. The question presented may be more generally stated thus: Whether any judicial officer of a State has jurisdiction to issue a writ of habeas corpus, or to continue proceedings under the writ when issued, for the discharge of a person held under the authority, or claim and color of the authority, of the United States, by an officer of that government. For it is evident, if such jurisdiction may be exercised by any judicial officer of a State, it may be exercised by the court commissioner within the county for which he is appointed; and if it may be exercised with reference to soldiers detained in the military service of the United States, whose enlistment is alleged to have been illegally made, it may be exercised with reference to persons employed in any other department of the public service when their illegal detention is asserted. It may be exercised in all cases where parties are held under the authority of the United States, whenever the invalidity of the exercise of that authority is affirmed. The jurisdiction, if it...