New Britain herald., 1914-04-14
HABFAS CORPUS IS GRANTED TO THAW
Judge AIdriCh Upho|dS Petition of
 Stanford Whites Slayer.
CASE CGiS TO SUPREME COURT

Bail Until Highest Court in the
 Country Renders It's Decision
 Various Phases of Case Discussed.
 Concord, N. H., April Hilary Kendall Thaw's petition for a writ of habeas corpus was granted by Judge Edgar Aldrich of the United States district court today. The court be issued for the prisoners discharge from custody and arrangements had been completed to take the case to the United States supreme court on appeal
 Thaws petition for admission to bail the court left undetermined, talk appropriate for this to be passed upon by the supreme court.
 ~ Result of Decision.
 i The result of the decision is that Thaws guardianship and condition will be unchanged for the present, but that his petition for writ of habeas corpus will go to the highest court in the land with a decision of the lower court in his favor
 The decision filed with the clerk of the court here makes more than ten thousand words and discusses ex- haustively the various phases of the case presented in the United States court, concluding: -..
 My conclusion is that the consti- tutional right of extradition for crime does. not reasonably apply to such a situation as this where the right of control by the demanding statute re- sides in a degree of custody based on insanity, and where its papers upon their face negative the idea of personal criminal responsibility It is further thought that 1t would involve forced or fictional reasoning to make a flight of the character of the one in question the kind of flight con- templated by the constitution as d basis for extradition.
 Order Will Be Made.
 "It results that an order will be made sustaining the writ and that tho petitioner be discharged from the ex- tradition process under which he was held at the time his petition for ha- beas corpus was brought upon con stitutional grounds
 Tt has been understood from the beginning that, whichever way this case was decided by me, it would be taken to the supreme court. There fore, no formal order will be made either sustaining the writ or discharg- ing the petitioner until the aggrieved party has had an opportunity to perfect it's appeal"
 Petition Was Filed.
 When the slayer of Stanford White entered this state last September af- ter his deportation from Canada, he was arrested by the state authorities. To prevent his extra dition to New York his attorneys petitioned for writ of habeas corpus, this proceed ing automatically placing the case in federal jurisdiction and acting as d stay to the extradition which was later granted by Governor Felker.
 Later the fugitive applied for ad- mission to bail on the ground that conspiracy to escape from the insane asylum at Matteawan was bailable. Counsel for New York state opposed motion for bail, alleging that Thaw's mental condition was such as to make his freedom menace to the public.
 Mental Condition Discussed.
 Reciting the facts as to Thaw's petition for ball. and the appoint ment and report of the commission upon his mental condition, the court says: -.|
 II have no doubt of the right of the court to grant bail under the cir cumstances of this case; but as the question is an interlocutory one, of which the petitioner has the right ID avail himself at any time and at any stage of the proceedings, and as the case is about to go out of the control of this court and into the supreme court, and as upon the question, l am disposed to leave the motion TOT pail undetermined without jurisdlctlon.
 Danger Is Remote.
 The court says that the report of the commission, supplemented by his own observation at the several hear ines. satisfied him that any supposed danger to the community through Tha,w's liberty was so remote as not to warrant his being deprived Of bail upon that ground
 "I am not at all certain that I am not denying a plain right, and doing the petitioner injustice, by leaving this question undecided he says.
 Thaw's case the court finds to pc that of a person sought to be extra dited under the constitution because he had fled from guardianship cus- tody based upon the verdict of jury that he was insane.
 Utmost Caution Required.
 .'The case is a novel one," com ments the court, and requires the utmost caution, as the power of ex- tradition is exceptional and extremely arbitrary, and because it imposes it. self upon personal liberty, and be- cause heretofore, neither in this country nor in England has extradi-