The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1899-08-22
Chinese RGmaDded Back to Custody
Of J. K. Brown.
JUSTICE FREAR'S FINAL DECISION
The Court Rules That the Petition :.
ers Were Never Legally Landed
In These Islands.

Following is the full text of the i'm
portant decision of Justice Frear in the
Chinese habeas corpus cases, in which
the petitioners are remanded to the
custody of J. X. Brown, the special
agent in Hawaii of the United States
treasury department:
The petitioners applied for writ of
habeas corpus which was issued as
prayed for directed to II. X. Hitchcock,
j. X. Brown and Richard Ivers
Mr.. Hitchcock returned that he was
deputy marshal of the Republic of Ha-
wall and held the petitioners pursuant
to the orders of j. X. Brown, United
States Chinese Inspector, and not 9TH
erwise. Throughout the case it was
recognized that Mr.. Hitchcock had
merely the actual custody for Mr..
Brown, who claimed the legal custody.
Mr.. Brown returned that he was
United States Chinese Inspector and
that as such and not otherwise he held
the petitioners; that they were Chinese
subjects who arrived at the port of Ho-
nolulu from China, July %, 1899; that
he had inspected them in his said Off
cial capacity and ascertained that they
had not complied with the provisions
of the treaty between the United States
and China or the United States statutes
Ior United States Treasury Department
regulations relating to Chinese immi-
grafton.
Mr.. 1VerS was not served with the
writ and so made no return, but it was
|Orally stated by the Attorney General,
who appeared for Messrs. Brown and
Hitchcock, that these last named gen.
tlemen alone held the petitioners and
that Mr.. Ivers had nothing to do with
them, whereupon counsel for the petit
TONERS deemed it unnecessary to ask
for further order of service upon Mr..
Ivers.
The petitioners replied ITO Mr.
Browns return, denying that he, as
United States Chinese Inspector or
otherwise, had authority, under the
laws of the United States or the regu-
lations of the United States Treasury
Department or otherwise, to retain the
petitioners; or either of them, in GUS
tOdy, and alleging that he, the said
Brown, in his official capacity as Chi
nese Inspector, had permitted the petit
TONERS to land and that he and the
said Hitchcock had afterwards seized
the petitioners without authority of
law and now held them for the pur-
poses of deportation.
The first question raised was wheth-
eE the inspector had lost control of the
petitioners. For the purposes of this
question it was conceded by counsel for
the petitioners that Mr.. Brown had
the requisite authority to decide Whe-
ther the petitioners had right to land
in the first instance; that he so decid-
ed adversely to the petitioners; that
such decision, whether it's validity
could be inquired into by the court or
not, was correct; and that he could
lawfully bring the petitioners on shore
and there keep them in custody for
the purpose of inspecting them and
while awaiting an opportunity to send
them back to China. On the other
hand, it was conceded by the Attorney
General that if the petitioners had
been allowed to land Tin the legal
sense, as distinguished from the mere
on shore temporarily in COM
pliance with the exclusion laws) the
inspector could not retake them for the
purpose of deportatiOn; in other words,
that the authority of the inspector ex-
tended at most, only to the exclusion
Of Chinese and not to the arrest and
deportation of Chinese already in the
even though unlawfully here
The question then was ole of fact as
to whether the inspector had allowed
the petitioners to go at large so far as
he was concerned; that is, to land Or
enter the country in the legal sense.
In support of the view that he had
introduced to the effect, in substance,
that he had permitted the Hawaiian
rnY1fi inn nY, Do > \