Case ID: mass_68/html/0406-01.html
Source: Caselaw Access Project
Author: {"author": "By the Court.", "license": "Public Domain", "url": "https://static.case.law/"}
Date Created: 2024-08-24T03:29:51.129683

Maxime Belgard vs. Elias A. Morse.
    This court will not issue a writ of habeas corpus in behalf of a person, committed to jail on a criminal accusation, for want of bail, who may be admitted, to bail by an inferior court.
    Petition for a writ of habeas corpus, representing that the petitioner, having been charged by complaint before a justice of the peace with the crime of adultery, was now imprisoned in the Commonwealth’s jail for the county of Bristol, by the deputy jailer, under a mittimus issued by said justice on the petitioner’s failing to comply with the order of the justice “to recognize in the sum of dollars, with a sufficient surety or sureties,” for his personal appearance at the next term of the court of common pleas, the order not mentioning the sum in which he should recognize; and that in this the mittimus was irregular, and gave no authority to imprison the petitioner.
    
      J. Brown, for the petitioner.
   By the Court.

A person held under color of legal process is not entitled to the writ of habeas corpus, as of right. Rev. Sts. c. Ill, §§ 1, 2. It is very clear that, if the petitioner were here on habeas corpus, the court would only fix the amount of bail Now, by Rev. Sts. c. Ill, § 36, “when any person is committed to jail, on any criminal accusation, for want of bail, any justice of the court of common pleas, or any two justices of the peace and of the quorum, may admit him to bail,” and may issue a writ of habeas corpus, when necessary for this purpose. There is therefore no occasion for us to issue this writ.

Petition dismissed.