Court Opinion

ID: 9651587
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:28:01.118101+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:36.411696
License: Public Domain

ROSS, Circuit Judge
(dissenting). I am unable to agree to the affirmance of the judgment appealed from dismissing the writ of habeas corpus. I understand the law to be well settled that, when a person is restrained of his liberty in any state to answer an indictment found against Jhim in another state for a crime alleged to have been committed therein, and is taken before a court commissioner for an order of removal to answer the charge, while the indictment constitutes prima facie evidence of pbobable cause of his guilt, it is not conclusive, but, on the contrary, that the accused person is legally entitled to rebut that presumption, and to show, if he can, that he was not in the state when and where the crime charged against him is alleged to have been committed, that he is not in fact the person so indicted, or any other fact that he is able to show tending to overcome the prima facie *494case made by the indictment of his probable guilt. See Tinsley v. Treat, 205 U. S. 20, 27 S. Ct. 430, 51 L. Ed. 689; Beavers v. Henkel, 194 U. S. 73, 24 S. Ct. 605, 48 L. Ed. 882; Benson v. Henkel, 198 U. S. 1, 25 S. Ct. 569, 49 L. Ed. 919; Hyde v. Shine, 199 U. S. 62, 25 S. Ct. 760, 50 L. Ed. 90; Greene v. Henkel, 183 U. S. 249, 22 S. Ct. 218, 46 L. Ed. 177; In re Burkhardt (D. C.) 33 F. 25; Erwin v. U. S. (D. C.) 37 F. 470, 2 L. R. A. 229; U. S. v. Dana (D. C.) 68 F. 886; U. S. v. Karlin (D. C.) 85 F. 963; Price v. McCarty, 89 F. 84, 32 C. C. A. 162.
To make such showing against his removal the indicted party is obviously entitled to a hearing before the commissioner. I find in the record no evidence that the appellant in the present case had such hearing before the commissioner ordering his removal to the district of the state where the indictment against him is pending, although it is contended upon.the part of his attorneys that he insisted both before the commissioner and before the court below upon such right. It is true that the “record contains the return of the marshal to the writ of habeas corpus that was issued in the case, in which it is stated that the defendant to the indictment — the present appellant — “was taken before United States Commissioner F. W. Radley, at Bellingham, Wash.,. who on May 1, 1924, determined that there was probable cause to believe” that he committed the crime charged against him in the indictment that has been mentioned. For all that appears, such determination by the commissioner may have been made upon the prima facie evidence 'afforded by the indictment. It does not at all show, in my opinion, that the indicted party was given any hearing of any character against the application for his removal, which, as I understand the law, was essential and jurisdictional.