Meigs County telegraph. [volume] (Pomeroy [Ohio]) 1848-1859, 1855-11-13

blackstone. on the subject of commit
menl and bail. says. after describing the
offences fos which person ought to be car
ried be:oss usti5s of the Peace He
must either BE- committed to prison, or give
bail; that IS put in securities for appearance,
to answer the charge against him. The
commitment therefore, being only for safe
custody. When imprisonment is merely
for custody before trial and not for punish
ment as after conviction, the force of the
ha6eas corpus is vastly different, it stands
precisely in The same position as did the
bail-piers BY the ancient common law, be-
fore the statute before mentioned. The
same learned author says, "But this inn
prisonment az has been said, is only for
safe Custody nd not for punishment; there
fore, IN this d.soious interval between the
commitrnen' and trial, prisoner ought to
be used with the utmost humanity, &C."
We viii now examine the extent of the
power guaranteed by our statute 70 the ex-
ercise Of The writ Of ha6eas corpus. Chap.
Y, Sec. 10 reads as follows: "That if any
person shall be arrested, contrary to the
provisions herein contained, such person
may and shall be discharged by writ Of
habeGs corpus, or in summary way, bv
motion, before the court from which the
process shall have issued, at the cost of the
party sueing out such process. So it
does depend upon the grounds upon which
an arrest is. made whether the habsas corpus
will apply
Inthetase under consideration no effort
has been made to show that the arrest was
made contrary TO law, and without showing
such to have been the case, the Judge had
no authority to discharge the prisoners, and
and we still maintain that he exceeded his
authority. 8<t
We have now produced law with our
conclusions, and will simply say that no
court ought to be used as means to let
loose upon society the very worst of our
race, merely because an unintentional omis-
sion happened to appear upon the face Of
the mittimus. And stranger than all, that
such representative Of intelligence, mo-
rails and piety as the editor of the Telegraph,
should be SO earnestly defending the dis
charge of counterfeiters upon mere technic-
al grounds.
We do not think that Judge Merrill with
evil design released the prisoners, but he
greatly erred, in our humble opinion.
After all his labor, the editor has no
once touched the question at issue, which
is this: that there was nothing in the mitti
mus to show that the Justice upon whose
order the prisoners were confined, had any
jurisdiction or authority to remand thu
prisoners to jail. A Justice of the Peace
in Meigs county, Ohio, has no right, au
thority, or jurisdiction over prisoner for {
crime committed in Jackson county, Vir
ginia. This, we suppose, Bro. Firor vii
admit. Well, in order to avoid the posi-
bility of any such illegal acts, it is essen
t,al that In every writ the place where tn
offence was committed be shown, in orde
to show that the justice had the right t.
commit the prisoner. The writ by which
these prisoners we've held failed to SHOW
that the offense was committed within tn
jurisdiction Of the justice who remande,
them to Jail. The question then was
Had this writ sufficient authority to iustif
the shoriGf IN retaining them in custody
If the Justice who committed them had n
jurisdiction over the prisoner he had nc
authority to commit. Ifhe bad no authorit
to commit, the Sheriff had no right to de
tain the prisoners. The writ of habeO
corpus was sued out, to ascertain whethe
the Sheriff had sufficient authority for re
tanning the prisoners. Now comes the que'
ton, how is this to be ascertained? 30
the return Of a public officer TO a writ (
habeas corpus, stating that he detained th
party by virtue Of process, the erisIent
and VALIDITY Of process are the ONL'
facts upon which issue can be taken. TIL
suficiency of the evidence on which th
process issued, cannot be inquired into o
the return Of writ Of habeas corpus.
the warrant is void, the prisoner shall b
discharged" Bennac. v. the People, 4 Bal
bour 81; Nelson v. Cutler, johnson v. [
s., s McLean's R. 326, ,89; Adams v. Bruc
ed vol. West Law Journal 499; Swan
stat. 654, ,O43, from West Law Journal vo
8, N S. 174.
Here, then, we have The manner OF asce
tanning the authority Of the Sheriff.
must be ONLY upon the eristencs and "
L1DIrY of the process. If the warrant fai
to show any important fact, the warrant
void, and the prisoners must be discharges
All, then, left for the Probate Court to d.
eide was, whether this writ was sufficient
hold the prisoners. All inferior oour
must show jurisdiction on the face of the
( Writs. Brother Firor assumes that the ju
tice had such jurisdiction. This is the vel
thing TO be shown, and the only means
showing it is from the face of the Wr
. i + 4 = Il n 4 Il Al