The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1900-05-08
Destroy No Just Safeguards.


TN ORDER to bring to justice the
contractors who conspired with
Il Captain Carter to defraud the
government in certain construc-
tions in Savannah harbor it is neces-
sary to secure their presence within
the jurisdiction of the Federal court
of Georgia. They were indicted in that
court but fled to New York and an at
tempt to eXtradte them failed, owing
to certain technical defects in the law.
To remedy those defects Attorney
General Griggs drafted, the senate
passed and the house judiciary COM
mittee will today give "a hearing in n
bill which in it's first form made an
Indictment in any federal court ground
for eXtradition. To this form the OBJ
lection was properly raised that it
would multiply spite prosecutions and
subject to indignity persons indicted in
distant places on flimsy evidence with
out benefit of rebuttal at the prelimin-
airy hearing. This objection called forth
the following amendment:
require such Judge justice or commissioner to
make an order of removal in any where it
shall be shown lat the defendant. by reason
of absence from the district in which the in.
dictmcnt is found, could not have committed
the offence with which he is charged"
This amendment does not satisfy the
opponents of the Griggs bill, chief Of
which is the New York Sun. That
paper contends that it leaves the pro-
| posed law open to the cardinal objec-
| tions that, under its very language, a
| copy of the indictment alone shall be
| absolute evidence of guilt, and that
however innocent he may be, to show
his innocence before the committing
magistrate. The Sun adds:
Under this new bill federal Judge would bc
| compelled to order the removal of the defend.
| ant even though it should appear upon the
| face of the indictment itself first, that II
| charged no offence against the United States
or second that it was bad in form, and should
be quashed, or third, that the offence charged
could not be legally tried in the district to
which removal is sought as the law now re-
| quirieS, or fourth, that the offence has been
| outlawed. The accused would he carried to
| distant district at.~ough the federal Judge be
| fore whom he was arraigned for removal was
| just as competent TO pass upon the defect o
| the indictment the Judge holding court
where it was found. 1t would be monstrous tC
send citizen the country to remote
state to have the objections TO an indictment
heard when the indictment was on its very
| face bad and which should be at onct
| quashed. To remove a man from his home fol
AN offence which is equally triable in his owl
state is an unreasonable seizure; and any seiz
| urc which does not guarantee to the accused
| a regular commitment with the right and duty
OF inquiry into probable cause is an unreason
able seizure, and one guarded against by th
| federal constitution.
1t is desirable that the co-conspir.
ators in the Carter frauds against the
government should not escape; but II
is also much more desirable that the
constitutional liberty of the individual
citizen should be jealousy protected il
the enactments of congress. A wa,
should be found to avoid the just OBJ
jections of the Sun and yet to author
i2e eXtradition in criminal litigation IL
the federal courts.
Ia L