Tinsley v. Anderson
| Decision Date | 31 May 1898 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 632 and 633,s. 632 and 633 |
| Parties | TINSLEY v. ANDERSON, sheriff (two cases) |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
James L. Bishop, for Thomas Tinsley.
Presley K. Ewing, for Archie R. Anderson.
The object of both these proceedings is to obtain the discharge of Thomas Tinsley from imprisonment under an order committing him for contempt, under the following circumstances:
On April 23, 1896, upon a petition for the appointment of a receiver of the Houston Cemetery Company, a corporation of Texas, filed against the corporation, and against Tinsley, who was its president, and the other officers of the corporation, both as such officers and individually, by some, in behalf of all, of the owners of lots in the cemetery, the district court of the county of Harris, in the state of Texas, made an order appointing a receiver of all the property of the corporation, and requiring each of its officers, upon demand of the receiver, to deliver to him any books, papers, money, or property, or vouchers for property, within their control, to which the corporation was entitled. Upon appeal by Tinsley and the other defendants from that order, it was affirmed on May 21, 1896, by the court of civil appeals of the state. 36 S. W. 802.
On February 2, 1897, the receiver made a motion to the district court to commit Tinsley for contempt in refusing to deliver to the receiver a minute book, promissory notes of the amount of $1,440.50, and a trust fund amounting to $492.52, belonging to the corporation. A rule to show cause was issued, in answer to which Tinsley averred that the notes and the minute book had been delivered by the corporation to him as collateral security for money advanced by him to the corporation, and that he had made, at the expense to himself of $7.70, an investment of the trust fund in securities which he had offered, and was still ready, to deliver to the receiver upon payment of this sum.
On February 6, 1897, the district court, after taking evidence and hearing the parties, adjudged that Tinsley was guilty of a contempt in disobeying its former order, by not delivering to the receiver the minute book, notes, and trust fund, being the property of the corporation and in his control, and ordered him to pay to the sheriff a find of $100, and to deliver to the receiver the property aforesaid, and to be committed until he should pay the find, and should (being allowed by the sheriff reasonable opportunity to do so if he should so desire) deliver the property to the receiver, or until he should be discharged by further order of the court. And upon the same day he was accordingly committed to the county jail.
On March 17, 1897, he presented to the judge of the district court a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, setting forth the above proceedings, and alleging that the judgment and commitment for contempt were void, and his detention under them illegal, for these reasons: That his claim to the notes, minute book and trust fund was made in good faith, and that he had the right thereto until deprived thereof by due course of law, and that the proceedings on said motion and said judgment are not due process of law, and that he ought not and cannot be by such proceedings imprisoned, or compelled to turn over said property and things, for that thereby he is deprived of a trial by due course of law; that the judgment and commitment were uncertain and indefinite, and did not limit the time of his confinement under them; that the statute of the state provided that the district court should not have the power to imprison any person for a longer period than three days for a contempt; and that the matters set up in said motion and judgment did not and could not constitute a contempt. This petition for a writ of habeas corpus was denied by the judge of the district court, but on April 2, 1897, was granted by the presiding judge of the court of criminal appeals of the state of Texas, and a writ of habeas corpus issued, addressed to the sheriff, who, on April 8th, returned that he held the prisoner under the commitment for contempt.
After full arguments by both parties, the court of criminal appeals entered judgment dismissing the writ of habeas corpus, and remanding him to the custody of the sheriff, on the ground that the order of commitment for contempt was within the power of the district court,—at least, so far as concerned the notes and minute book, because Tinsley was a party to the suit in which the receiver was appointed, and claimed no title, other than by way of lien, in the notes and minute book, and such lien, if genuine, would be preserved to him against the property in the hands of the receiver. 40 S. W. 306.
On April 26, 1897, Tinsley filed a motion to set aside that judgment, and for a rehearing, which, after further written arguments in his behalf, was overruled on May 12, 1897.
On May 15, 1897, upon a petition alleging that by the order of commitment he 'is deprived of his liberty, and will be, if he submits to the order, of his property, without due process of law, in violation of the constitution of the United States,' he obtained from the circuit court of the United States for the Eastern district of Texas a writ of habeas corpus to the sheriff, which, after a hearing, was by the judgment of that court dismissed, and the prisoner remanded to custody; and on January 21, 1898, he appealed from that judgment to this court.
On January 31, 1898, he sued out a writ of error from this court to review the judgment of the court of criminal appeals of the state of Texas, and filed in that court an assignment of errors, one of which was that by the proceedings in that court 'he was deprived of his liberty, and, if he submitted to the order of the trial court, would be deprived of his property without due process of law, in violation of the constitution of the United States, and the fifth and fourteenth amendments thereto.'
The two cases now before us are the appeal from the judgment of the circuit court of the United States, and the writ of error to the court of criminal appeals of the state of Texas.
The dismissal by the circuit court of the United States of its own writ of habeas corpus was in accordance with the rule repeatedly laid down by this court, that the circuit courts of the United States, while they have power to grant writs of habeas corpus for the purpose of inquiring into the cause of restraint of liberty of any person in custody under the authority of a state in violation of the constitution, a law or a treaty of the United States, yet, except in cases of peculiar urgency, ought not to exercise that...
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