Court Opinion

ID: 9418136
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 22:09:52.736107+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:21:55.995989
License: Public Domain

Me. Justice Hablan,
dissenting.
The. plaintiff in error, Bailey, was arrested and held for trial • on the charge of having, obtained from his employer with the intent to injure him the sum of fifteen dollars. Having been taken into custody he'sued out a writ of habeas corpus from a subordinate court of Alabama, alleging that the statute under which he was arrested and deprived- of his liberty was in violation of the Constitution of the United States.
The statute of Alabama referred to is as follows: “§ 6845 of Alabama Code of 1907, p. 522, c. 211. — Any person who, with intent to injure or defraud his employer, enters into a contract in writing for the performance of any act or service, and thereby obtains money or other personal property from such employer, and with like intent, and without just cause, and without' refunding such money or paying for such property, refuses or fails to perform such ‘act or service, must, on conviction, -be punished by a fine in.'double the damage suffered by the injured party, but not more than three hundred dollars, one-half of said fine to go to the county and one-half to the.party injured; and any person who, with intent to injure or defraud his landlord, enters into any contract in writing for the rent of land and thereby obtains any money or other personal property from such landlord, and with like intent, without just cause, and without refunding such money or paying for such property, Refuses dr fails to cultivate such land, or to comply with his contract relative thereto, must, on conviction, be *456punished by a fine in double the damage suffered by the injured party, but not more than three hundred dollars, one-half of said fine to go to the county and one-half to the party injured. And the refusal of any person who enters into such contract to perform such act or service, or to cultivate such lands, or refund such money, or pay for such property, without just cause, shall be prima fade evidence of the intent to injure his employer or landlord or to defraud him.”
It appears that at the hearing of the application for habeas corpus the accused contended that the statute was in violation (1) of the Fourteenth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States in that it deprived him of his liberty without due process of law and denied him the equal protection of the' laws; (2) of the Thirteenth Amendment, in that its effect was to subject him to involuntary servitude (not as a punishment for crime) if he failed to pay a debt preferred against him.
. These contentions were overruled and the discharge of the accused having been refused he prosecuted an appeal to the Supreme Court of Alabama. That court considered upon its merits every question presented by the record, and affirmed the order under which the accused was held in custody. From that order the case was brought here by Bailey from that court upon writ of error granted by its Chief Justice.
Speaking generally, the statute has been assailed by the accused, as well as by the Attorney General of the United States (who, with the consent of this court, has filed a brief as amicus curiae), as establishing and maintaining and as intended to establish and maintain, as to laborers or employés in Alabama, a system of peonage in violation of the Constitution and the laws of the United States. The statute of Alabama, the Attorney General contends, is in violation of the act of Congress of March 2, 1867, c. 187, now .§ 1990, Rev. Stat., which provides that “all acts, laws, resolutions, orders, regulations, or usages of the Territory of New Mexico, or any other Territory or State, ... by virtue.of which any attempt shall hereafter be made to establish, maintain, or enforce, directly or *457indirectly, the voluntary or involuntary service or labor of any persons as peons in liquidation of any debt or obligation, or otherwise, are declared null and void.” 14 Stat. 546.
• The Supreme Court of Alabama, by its final order, overruled the objections which the accused urged, on constitutional grounds, against the statute and refused to direct his discharge from custody. If that statute is repugnant to the Constitution and laws of the United States it is void, and the accused is deprived of his liberty in violation of Federal law. That every one will admit. But this court refuses, although the case is before it upon writ of error regularly sued out by the defendant, to consider and determine that question. It affirms the judgment of the state court and leaves the accused in custody upon the ground — if I correctly interpret the opinion — that he took a “short cut” when seeking, upon habeas corpus, to be discharged from custody in advance of his trial. If the accused, in advance of his trial, had. sought a discharge on a writ of habeas corpus sued out from a Circuit Court of the United States, that might have been deemed a “short cut.” For it is well established that “in the light of the relations existing under our system of government between the judicial tribunals of the Union and the State, and in recognition of the fact that the public good requires that those relations be not disturbed by unnecessary conflict between courts equally bound to guard and protect rights secured by the Constitution,” the courts- of the United States will' not, except in certain cases of urgency, and in advance of his trial, discharge upon habeas corpus one who is alleged to be held in custody by the State in violation of the Constitution or the laws of the United States. Ex parte Royall, 117 U. S. 241, 248, 249; Minnesota v. Brundage, 180 U. S. 499, 501, and the authorities there cited. But whether the accused, in seeking -his discharge by the state court, adopted a mode of procedure authorized by the local law was for the Alabama courts, not for this court, to determine. The state court recognized the proceeding Jjy habeas -corpus to be in accordance with the local law; for, the Supreme Court of Ala*458bama, without even intimating that the .accused took a “short cut,” or pursued the wrong method to obtain his discharge, entertained his^&ppeal and passed upon the constitutionality of the statute under which he was held in custody. As the state court by its final order held that the detention of the accused by the state authorities was not inconsistent with any privilege secured by the Constitution or laws of the United States, he was entitled, of right-, to bring the case here upon writ of error and have this court determine the question, distinctly raised, whether the statute of Alabama, as applied to' his case, did not infringe privileges belonging to him under the Constitution and laws of the United States. We soy, of right, because § 709, Rev. Stat., exoressly authorizes a writ of error to reexamine the final judgment of the highest court of a State, which denies a title, right, privilege or immunity, specially set up or claimed under the United States. This is a right of great value. I submit that this court cannot properly refuse or fail to meet the constitutional question decided by the state court and plainly raised by the present writ of error for its consideration. Such refusal or failure cannot, I submit, be justified except on the ground that an order of the highest court of a State rendered on a formal appeal which affirms that the accused is not held in custody in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States, is riot a final judgment within the meaning of § 709 — a proposition which this court does not announce and which, I cannot believe, it will ever announce. The course pursued in the disposition of this case by the court has not, so far as I am aware, any precedent in its history. If it was the right and duty of the state court to determne by its final order whether the accused was constitutionally deprived of his liberty or was subjected to involuntary servitude or labor, not in punishment for crime, but really in liquidation of a debt, it is then the right, and, I think, the duty of this court, upon the present writ of error, regularly brought by the accused, to reexamine that judgment and decide the question whether he is deprived of his liberty *459in violation of the Constitution or l$ws of the United States. It is a curious condition of things if this court must remain silent when the question comes before it regularly, whether the final judgment of the highest court of a State does not deprive the citizen of rights secured to him by the Supreme Law of the Land.
For the reasons stated I dissent from the opinion and judgment of the court.
Mr. Justice Day also dissented.