Court Opinion

ID: 9425189
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 23:14:01.993795+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:22:53.960928
License: Public Domain

Mr. Justice Blackmun,
concurring in the result.
I concur in the result. The conclusion the Court reaches is not unexpected when one notes the extraordinary expansion of the concept of habeas corpus effected in recent years. See Ex parte Hull, 312 U. S. 546 (1941); Ex parte Endo, 323 U. S. 283 (1944); Jones v. Cunningham, 371 U. S. 236 (1963); Peyton v. Rowe, 391 U. S. 54 (1968); Carajus v. LaVallee, 391 U. S. 234 (1968); Nelson v. George, 399 U. S. 224 (1970). Cf. Schlanger v. Seamans, 401 U. S. 487 (1971). A trend of this kind, once begun, easily assumes startling proportions. The present case is but one more step, with the Alabama warden now made the agent of the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
I do not go so far as to say that on the facts of this case the result is necessarily wrong. I merely point out that we have come a long way from the traditional notions of the Great Writ. The common-law scholars of the past hardly would recognize what the Court has developed, see 4 W. Blackstone, Commentaries *131-134, and they would, I suspect, conclude that it is not for the better.
The result in this case is not without its irony. The petitioner’s speedy trial claim follows upon his escape from Kentucky custody after that State, at its expense, had returned the petitioner from California to stand trial in Kentucky. Had he not escaped, his Kentucky trial would have taken place five years ago> Furthermore, the petitioner is free to assert his speedy trial claim in the Kentucky courts if and when he is brought to trial there. *502And the claim, already strong on the facts here, increases in strength as time goes by.