Case ID: mich-np-r_1/html/0xxx-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "Graves J.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

In the matter of John Hicks, and Joshua Hicks.
    The decision of a Circuit Court on habeas corpus is re viewable by the Supreme Court.
    A writ of error is authorized upon a final judgment or determination of a Court of record in a proceeding allowed by the common law. The writ of habeas corpus is such a proceeding •
    Motion to dismiss a writ of error from Ionia Circuit.
   Opinion by

Graves J.

In October last, the Fulton Iron and Engine Works, commenced suit against Louis, John, and Joshua Hicks, in the Circuit Court for the county of Ionia, by capias, and upon such writ, John and Joshua Hicks, were arrested and confined in the jail of Ionia county for want of bail. A short time thereafter they were taken before the court in which the capias was returned by habeas corpus from the same court, and a hearing was there had upon the return, upon the legality of their detention. Upon that hearing, the Circuit Court discharged the parties so brought up from their imprisonment under the capius, and the plaintiff in the last named writ, thereupon sued out a writ of error for the purpose of having the judgment of the Circuit Court, on the hearing in the habeas corpius proceeding, reviewed in the Supreme Court.

The parties so discharged, moved to dismiss the writ of error upon several grounds:

1st.. They insist that the decision of the court below on habeas corpus, and the discharge of the parties, is final, and not reviewable in any form. The ground taken is untenable. The constitution has vested the Supreme Court, with a general superintending control over all inferior courts, and has clothed it with power to issue writs of error, habeas corpus, and other original remedial writs. It has undoubted authority to review, by some mode, a decision on habeas corpus, when made by a Circuit Court. This power to review cannot depend upon the nature of the decision in the court below.

2. -It is urged, that a writ of error is altogether on the ground, that no judgment is pronounced in the proceedings by habeas corpus. A writ of error is authorized upon a final judgment, or determination of a court of record, in a proceeding allowed by the common law. The writ of habeas corpus is such a proceeding, and it contemplates a regular hearing upon an issue of law,'or fact, exhibited in writing. Upon this issue, the court pronounces judgment, which the law requires to be formally entered of record. This judgment is final, and conclu•sive, since it puts an end to it altogether. It is not necessary that a judgment should be a final determination of the right of the parties, to authorize a writ of error. It is enough if it determine the particular suit. The final decision of habeas corpus, in the Circuit Cpurt, is such a determination as may give the right to a writ of error, to review the rulings there made, although it may not be the only or preferable remedy, and may not be at all serviceable in some cases, or sufficiently so in others.

3. It is urged that the petitioners in the habeas corpus, having been discharged from custody, they cannot be put in custody again for the same cause, by this court; or any other, under the old capias, and that the proceedings, by writ of error, must therefore be totally ineffectual. This court will not anticipate, on this motion, those considerations which belong to the merits. The determination in the Circuit Court appears to have been of a kind, reviewable on error, but the return is not before the court for investigation. When that return is before the Court, and not sooner, the court may form an opinion respecting the extent and efficiency of the remedy, which the plaintiffs in error have chosen. For the present, it is sufficient that the case appears to be one in which a writ of error is allowable. But whether the remedy elected, will, or will not, prove beneficial to the plaintiffs in error, is a question which ought not to influence the result of the motion, which is therefore denied with costs.