Court Opinion

ID: 9576367
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 21:23:42.259167+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:06:13.038429
License: Public Domain

WADE, Justice
(dissenting).
I dissent. Appellant was detained for 6 months in jail as a material witness because through no fault of his own he was unable to obtain a bond for his appearance. Under such circumstances the following expressed by the Maryland Court of Appeals in Hall v. Commissioners of Somerset County, 82 Md. 618, 34 A. 771, 773, 32 L.R.A. 449, on page 450 in my opinion expresses the justice, humanity and logic inherent in our system of government:
“ * * * For an honest, law-abid-' ing, but poor and friendless individual to be confined in a common jail, and there forcibly made the companion of criminals and of the depraved, merely because he is unable, through no fault of his own, to find security for his appearance as a witness in behalf of the commonwealth, is bad enough; but when, in addition to this, by that very confinement, he is- deprived of pursuing his avocation, and then is refused compensation as a witness except for the few days he may be actually within the courtroom while the trial is in progress, his situation is made immeasurably worse. He is subjected to the same treatment that a criminal is, though confessedly not guilty, or even accused of crime; and he is deprived of his liberty and his means of livelihood, and denied compensation as a witness, though charged with no transgression of the law.
“To warrant such a result, even if it ever could be justified, there ought to be the most unequivocal statutory sanction. The plaintiff was committed and held distinctively and exclusively as a witness for and in behalf of the state. It was in his capacity as a witness for the prosecution, and solely because he was such a witness, that he was or could have been detained at all; and this detention must be treated as a constructive attendance upon the court, un*271less the flagrant injustice and great hardship which the contrary view will inevitably entail be deliberately inflicted and sanctioned. * * * ”
See also Kirke v. Stafford County, 76 N.H. 181, 80 A. 1046, Ann.Cas.1912C, 807, and the following cases cited therein and in the note on page 809 as holding that witness fees are recoverable where the witness is detained in custody for future appearance without fault of the witness. State v. Stewart, 4 N.C. 138; Robinson v. Chambers, 94 Mich. 471, 54 N.W. 176, 20 L.R.A. 57, Hutchins v. State, 8 Mo. 288, Higginson’s Case, 12 Fed.Cas., page 471, No. 6, 1 Cranch.C.C. 73, and McFall’s Case, 2 Mart. O.S., La., 171.