Court Opinion

ID: 9416343
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-02 19:41:48.862751+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:44.917297
License: Public Domain

Mr Justice Johnson
dissenting.
This case presents two questions, one of jurisdiction; and the other on the right to relief, if we assume jurisdiction.
My opinion on the first has been so strong in the negative; that I have taken little pains to investigate the second; but I will give a brief exposition of my views on both.
On the first I have thought that it need but be stated to be decided.
The prisoner is in custody of a capias ad satisfaciendum issuing out of the circuit court of this district. He has been convicted of a crime, a fine has been inflicted, and this writ has been issued to recover it, as he was not required by the sentence to remain in custody until the fine was paid. It is not questioned that the process was legally issued conformably to the laws of Maryland, or contended that any ground whatever exists for discharging the prisoner; except first, the excessive char acter or the'fine;, which ground this court hás now decided against; and secondly, that upon which he is now to be discharged, to wit, that he was not on the return day of the writ brought into court, and there formally recommitted to the-marshal, to be detained' until the fine was paid.
Now it does appear to me that it is impossible to avoid being trussed on one horn or the other of the dilemma, with which the case was met by the attorney-general. Is this court called upon to relieve the prisoner against an act of the court, or an act of *580the officers of the court ? If of the court, then what act has the court done, or omitted to do, to the prejudice of the defendant? The cause of complaint is, that it has not committed him to the custody of the marshal; but the custody of the marshal is the very injury that we are now called upon to.redress. Is the omission to do that which, by the terras of this application it is acknowledged, would have legally and effectually deprived him of his liberty, a matter for him to complain of? or for us to relieve him from? But suppose it is a cause of complaint that the court has erred in not doing an act which it was never called upon to do; then have they not erred in a criminal causé ? And is it not therefore acknowledged to be beyond the limits of our appellate jurisdiction ?
But the truth is, and it is impossible to controvert it, that the complaint is, and the relief sought is, against the marshal for a detention without authority. The. court committed no error in issuing the process, under which the arrest was made; and if, as is now established, the process has lost its efficiency, •and is no 1 mger a justification for detaining the prisoner ; it is not under the process of the court that he is detained, but without it, .and therefore false imprisonment in the officer. Why did not the prisoner present this motion to the court that issued the process ? to the court whose officer the marshal is, quoad hoc? The reason is obvious; had the court refused to discharge him, and this application then been made here, the appeal would have been too palpably in a case of criminal jurisdiction. And yet, in that event only, would he have found a pretext for claiming of this court redress against an act of that court. At present there is no act of that court for this- court to revise; for if not giving the order for commitment could be tortured into such an act, then the answer is, there never was a motion made to grant such an order: and if holding him in custody under process, or pretext of process, issuing out of that court, can be considered as a subject of revision here; then is the court unaffected by the error, since, in terms, the motion here admits their process to have long since expired in the marshal’s hands: and surely the courtis not responsible for any thing donp under colour of its process, but for which the process gives no authority.
The truth is, that this is a direct interference by means of *581the writ now moved for, between a court of the United States, and the executive, officer of that court: and upon the principles of this decision, I see no reason why we may not next be called upon to issue the same writ to our Ultima Thule, .the mouth of the Oregon, to bring up a prisoner under a capias ad satisfaciendum, in order to examine whether he. has paid the debt or not. Is this appellate jurisdiction; or is it the proper employment of this tribunal?
This all grows out of the case of Hamilton; a case on which the question was not decided, and a case which, if any one will examine the report of it, he will pronounce of very little authority. Then followed the case of Bollman v. Swartwout, professing obedience to that of Hamilton; but a case which occurred in the midst of great public excitement. Next came those of Burford and Kearney, et similes multi; and finally this, which is a distinct augury in my humble opinion of the conclusions to which we are finally to be led by precedent. I have always opposed the progress of this exercise of jurisdiction, and will oppose it as long as a hope remains to arrest it.
On the second point, I will make but a few remarks.
I have never doubted that under the writ of capias-ad satisfaciendum, by ithe common law, the sheriff may not only take, Imt detain the defendant until he was legally discharged; or that for the purpose of authorizing a detention in his own custody, a commitment to the sheriff was unheard of. On the page of the book quoted by defendant’s counsel to maintain the contrary doctrine, which precedes the page quoted, will be found, an entry, that explains in what cases the committitur is resorted to in England. It is true that this writ has its return day; and that it, in terms, requires the production of the defendant’s body on that day: but practically, this exigency of the writ has received this construction; “ that he have him ready to produce on that day, it so required by the plaintiff,” Blackstone says, vol. 3, ,p. 415, “if he does not on that day make satisfaction, he.must remain in custody until he does.” And in the case of Hopkins v. Plomer, 2 Black. 1048, the court gives in express terms, that version to the writ. “ It is the. sheriff’s duty, say the court, to obey the writ, and the writ commands him to take the defendant, and him safely keep, so that he may have him ready to satisfy the plaintiff. What figure *582would a sheriff make in England, if to an action for escape; he were to plead that he took the defendant and brought him into court on the day, &c., in the literal language of the exigency of the writ? No one would dream of justifying his not detaining the prisoner, for want of a committitur. But it is insisted that the common law has undergone a change under the laws and practice of Maryland.
I have seen no statute of Maryland which, either in terms or by inference, makes a committitur to himself necessary to justify a sheriff in detaining his prisoner under a capias ad satisfaciendum. It is true that, by a very humane and judicious provision, the laws of Maryland have permitted the plaintiff to indulge the defendant in execution without losing his debt; and 'from this the practice might naturally grow up to bring the defendant into court to await the will of the plaintiff: and the court have very properly decided, omitting the motion to remand him, did not deprive the plaintiff of his second execution : but I look in vain for any decision going to establish that the sheriff would have been liable for false imprisonment, had he taken the prisoner back to jail without a commitment.
This has been sought to be supplied by a reference to the clerks of the Maryland courts to establish a practice to that effect; but I protest' agáinst sucb means of getting at the law of a case, especially as to a practice of which those clerks are called to testify subsequent in date to the separation from Maryland. But I have looked into the evidence thus procured, and, even if legal, I look in vain for any evidence to support the doctrine; most of them speak doubtingly, or decline speaking at all, and the sum and substance of the certificates of the whole amount to no more than this, that if the sheriff brings the body into court, the court will, on motion, order a commitment. But this is not the point we are. called upon to decide : we are called upon to decide that, without such commitment, it would be false imprisonment in the sheriff to resume the custody of the defendant. In this district, I think there has been positive evidence furnished by the defendant himself of the exercise of a discretion in the marshal, whether to bring the person of the prisoner into court or not; and therein perhaps to consult the feelings of the individual. I allude to those two instances in which the return was “ cepi and defend*583ant in jail.” We may imagine some possible ground for lessening the pressure of these two instances; but certainly the case, as exhibited to us, furnishes no such ground.
I am opposed to the order now made.