Case Name: Brent and Brent v. Lambert S. Beck
Court: United States Circuit Court of the District of Columbia
Jurisdiction: United States
Decision Date: 1838-03
Citations: 5 Cranch 461
Docket Number: 
Parties: Brent and Brent v. Lambert S. Beck.
Judges: 
Reporter: Reports of cases argued and determined in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia (District of Columbia - reported by Mackey)
Volume: 5
Pages: 461–462

Head Matter:
Brent and Brent v. Lambert S. Beck.
If a constable, having a warrant to arrest a man on a charge of forgery, seize and search his trunk, and find therein articles which he suspects were stolen, and takes them into his custody, they are not thereby in the custody of the law, hut may be replevied.
This was a rule to show cause why a writ of replevin, issued in the name of W. L. Brent and Robert J. Brent, against Lambert S. Beck, should not be quashed, because the goods replevied were in the custody of the law.
The defendant being a constable, and having a warrant to arrest one Henderson, upon a charge of forgery, searched his trunk, and finding therein some articles which he suspected were stolen, he took them into his custody, which custody, Mr. Bradley, for defendant, contended was the custody of the law, and cited Dalton’s Justice, 409; 1 Chitty, Cr. Law, 819, 865, 867.

Opinion:
The Court,
(Thruston, J.,
absent,) stopped Mr. Brent, who was about to reply, and refused to quash the replevin. Cranch, C. J., observed, that the property did not appear to have been in the custody of the law. Mr. Beck may have done right in taking the goods, but having no warrant therefor, or to arrest Henderson.for theft, his custody was not the custody of the law, so as to make it any contempt of this Court, or of any court, to replevy them.
Buie discharged.