United States Supreme Court Cases & Opinions

U.S. Supreme Court

United ex Rel. Hughes v. Gault, 271 U.S. 142 (1926)

United ex Rel. Hughes v. Gault

No. 513

Argued April 22, 1926

Decided May 3, 1926

271 U.S. 142

Syllabus

1. The Constitution does not require any preliminary hearing before removal of an accused person for trial to the federal court having jurisdiction of the charge. Pp. 271 U. S. 149, 271 U. S. 152.

Page 271 U. S. 143

2. A commitment for removal under Rev.Stats § 1014, ordered by a United States Commissioner after a finding of substantial grounds for the charge in an indictment, is not assailable in habeas corpus because of his refusal to hear defensive evidence and weigh it against the government's evidence of probable cause. P. 271 U. S. 150.

3. An indictment plainly showing the intention of the grand jury to charge the defendant with violating the Sherman Act held sufficient for removal purposes. P. 271 U. S. 151.

Affirmed.

Appeal from a judgment of the district court denying a discharge in habeas corpus. The relator, Hughes, was held for removal to the Northern District of Ohio for trial there under an indictment charging him and forty-six other natural persons and forty-six corporations with having engaged in a combination in restraint of interstate commerce in malleable iron castings, in violation of § 1 of the Sherman Law. At the hearing in the removal proceedings the relator admitted his identity and the government rested its case on this, and a certified copy of the indictment, which alleged that the corporate defendants produced some 75% of the malleable castings product of the United States, and were members of a voluntary trade association through and by means of which they cared out an agreement to eliminate competition among themselves as to prices, terms and conditions of sale, and customers, and that the relator and the other individual defendants (other than one employed as the Secretary of the association) were officers and agents of the corporations, managing and controlling their affairs. The commissioner, after hearing testimony of two customers of the relator's company, struck it out as purely defensive, declined to hear more testimony of the same character, and ordered a commitment on the indictment and on the testimony given by relator on his direct and cross-examinations.

Page 271 U. S. 148