On July 24, 1896, a warrant was issued by a commissioner for the
Southern District of the Indian Territory to arrest Johnson upon
the charge of rape, alleged to have been committed upon one Pearl
McCormick on the same day. Subsequently and on the 9th of October
at a regular term of the United States court for that district, he
was indicted, and on the 17th of October was arraigned, tried and
convicted by a jury, and is now under sentence of death. On July
26, the day following the commission of the offense, a warrant,
issued by a commissioner for the Eastern District of Texas charging
him with the same crime was placed in the hands of the marshal for
that district, who demanded of the marshal of the
Page 167 U. S. 121
Southern District of the Indian Territory the surrender of the
petitioner in obedience to said writ, but the same was refused. It
does not appear when this demand was made or whether it was before
or after the 1st day of September. It further appeared that, at the
time of the commission of the offense, the United States Court for
the Eastern District of Texas was not in session, and that no term
of said court was held until the third Monday of November, after
petitioner had been tried, convicted, and sentenced to death.
Held that if the petitioner was actually in the custody of
the marshal on the 1st of September, his subsequent indictment and
trial were valid, though in the first instance he might have been
illegally arrested.
It is the settled doctrine of this Court that a court having
possession of a person or property cannot be deprived of the right
to deal with such person or property until its jurisdiction is
exhausted, and that no other court has the right to interfere with
such custody and possession.
This was a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to obtain the
release of the petitioner from the custody of the Marshal of the
Southern District of the Indian Territory, who now holds him under
sentence of death for the crime of rape.
From the petition and the return to the rule to show cause, it
appears that on July 24, 1896, a warrant was issued by a
commissioner for the Southern District of the Indian Territory to
arrest Johnson upon the charge of rape, alleged to have been
committed upon one Pearl McCormick on the same day; that
subsequently, and on the 9th of October, at a regular term of the
United States court for that district, he was indicted, and on the
17th of October was arraigned, tried, and convicted by a jury, and
is now under sentence of death.
It further appears that on July 25th, the day following the
commission of the offense, a warrant issued by a commissioner for
the Eastern District of Texas charging him with the same crime was
placed in the hands of the marshal for that district, who demanded
of the marshal of the Southern District of the Indian Territory the
surrender of the petitioner in obedience to said writ, but the same
was refused. It does not appear when this demand was made or
whether it was before or after the 1st day of September. It further
appeared that at the time of the commission of the offense, the
United States Court for the Eastern District of Texas was not in
session, and that no term of said court was held until
Page 167 U. S. 122
the third Monday of November, after petitioner had been tried,
convicted and sentenced to death.
Upon this state of facts, the petitioner claimed that the United
States court for the Southern District of the Indian Territory had
no jurisdiction of the case, but that, under the provisions of an
act of Congress cited in the opinion, the court for the Eastern
District of Texas retained jurisdiction of all offenses committed
within the Southern District of the Indian Territory where the
punishment was death or imprisonment at hard labor until September
1, 1896, and that the United States Court for the Eastern District
of Texas had sole and exclusive jurisdiction over his offense.
MR. JUSTICE BROWN, after stating the facts in the foregoing
language, delivered the opinion of the court.
This case raises the question whether the United States Court
for the Southern District of the Indian Territory had jurisdiction
to try and condemn the petitioner under the circumstances above set
forth.
The following statutes are pertinent in this connection: by the
fifth section of the act "to establish a United States court in the
Indian Territory," etc., approved March 1, 1889, c. 333, 25 Stat.
783, it is enacted
"that the court hereby established shall have exclusive original
jurisdiction over all offenses against the laws of the United
States, committed within the Indian Territory as in this act
defined,
not punishable by death or imprisonment at hard
labor;"
by the seventeenth section, "that the Chickasaw Nation, and the
portion of the Choctaw Nation," within certain described boundaries
(including the locus of this crime),
"and all that portion of the Indian Territory not annexed to the
District of Kansas by the Act approved January 6, 1883, and not set
apart and occupied by the five civilized tribes, shall, from and
after the passage of
Page 167 U. S. 123
this act, be annexed to and constitute a part of the Eastern
Judicial District of the State of Texas for judicial purposes."
The eighteenth section provides that sessions of said court
shall be held twice in each year at Paris,
"and the United States courts, herein provided to be held at
Paris, shall have exclusive original jurisdiction of all offenses
committed against the laws of the United States within the limits
of that portion of the Indian Territory attached to the Eastern
Judicial District of the State of Texas by the provisions of this
act of which jurisdiction is not given by this act to the court
herein established in the Indian Territory."
Taking these sections together, it is clear that jurisdiction
was vested in the new court created by the act over all minor
offenses against the laws of the United States committed within the
Indian Territory, but that jurisdiction of all offenses punishable
by death or by imprisonment at hard labor was conferred upon the
United States Court for the Eastern District of Texas over that
portion of the Indian Territory described in section seventeen.
This jurisdiction was expressly continued by section
thirty-three of the Act of May 2, 1890, 26 Stat. 81, "to provide a
temporary government for the Territory of Oklahoma."
On March 1, 1895, an act was passed "to provide for the
appointment of additional judges of the United States Court in the
Indian Territory," etc. 28 Stat. 693. The ninth section of that act
reads as follows:
"SEC. 9. That the United States court in the Indian Territory
shall have exclusive original jurisdiction of all offenses
committed in said territory of which the United States court in the
Indian Territory now has jurisdiction, and after the first day of
September, 1896, shall have exclusive original jurisdiction of all
offenses against the laws of the United States committed in said
territory
except such cases as the United States Court at
Paris, Texas, Fort Smith, Arkansas, and Fort Scott, Kansas,
shall have acquired jurisdiction of before that time. . .
."
"All laws heretofore enacted conferring jurisdiction upon United
States courts held in Arkansas, Kansas, and Texas, outside of the
limits of the Indian Territory, as defined by
Page 167 U. S. 124
law, as to offenses committed in said Indian Territory, as
herein provided, are hereby repealed, to take effect on September
1, 1896, and the jurisdiction now conferred by law upon said courts
is hereby given from and after the date aforesaid to the United
States Court in the Indian Territory,
provided that in all
criminal cases where said courts outside of the Indian Territory
shall have on September 1, 1896, acquired jurisdiction, they shall
retain jurisdiction to try and finally dispose of such cases."
The case evidently turns upon the construction of this last
section. This section had three purposes:
first, to enable
the United States Court in the Indian Territory to retain the
jurisdiction it then had under the fifth section of the Act of
March 1, 1889, of all offenses against the laws of the United
States not punishable by death or by imprisonment at hard labor;
second, to give it jurisdiction after September 1, 1896,
of all offenses whatever, except of such cases as the courts in
Texas, Arkansas, and Kansas had acquired jurisdiction before that
time;
third, to repeal all laws conferring jurisdiction
upon these courts after that date, and to vest jurisdiction of the
same upon United States courts in the Indian Territory, with a
proviso repeating the exception above indicated.
Now if the United States Court for the Eastern District of Texas
had "acquired jurisdiction" of this case, manifestly it was
entitled to try the petitioner, but otherwise not. The fact that
the crime was committed on the 24th of July had no bearing upon the
question, since jurisdiction was vested in the United States Court
in the Indian Territory not of crimes or offenses committed after
September first, but of all offenses in that territory of which the
Texas court had not acquired jurisdiction before that date. In this
view, the date when the crime was committed is wholly immaterial,
and the case of
Caha v. United States, 152 U.
S. 211, is inapplicable. Jurisdiction is acquired under
this statute not by the commission of an offense, but by service of
process upon the person.
Herndon v.
Ridgway, 17 How. 424;
Chaffee v.
Hayward, 20 How. 208,
61 U. S. 215;
Boswell's Lessee v.
Otis, 9 How. 336,
50 U. S. 348;
Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714;
Mexican Central
Railway
Page 167 U. S. 125
v. Pinkney, 149 U. S. 194. In
this connection, jurisdiction of the "case" --
i.e. the
crime -- is indistinguishable from jurisdiction of the person who
is charged with the crime.
We know of no reason why the rule so frequently applied in cases
of conflicting jurisdiction between federal and state courts should
not determine this question. Ever since the case of
Ableman v.
Booth, 21 How. 506, it has been the settled
doctrine of this Court that a court having possession of a person
or property cannot be deprived of the right to deal with such
person or property until its jurisdiction is exhausted, and that no
other court has the right to interfere with such custody or
possession. This rule was reaffirmed in
Tarble's
Case, 13 Wall. 397, in
Robb v. Connolly,
111 U. S. 624, and
in
In re Spangler, 11 Mich. 298, and with reference to
personal property has been so often restated as to have become one
of the maxims of the law.
Taylor v.
Carryl, 20 How. 583;
Freeman v.
Howe, 24 How. 450;
Ellis v. Davis,
109 U. S. 485;
Krippendorf v. Hyde, 110 U. S. 276;
Covell v. Heyman, 111 U. S. 176;
Byers v. McAuley, 149 U. S. 608;
Moran v. Sturges, 154 U. S. 256;
In re Chetwood, 165 U. S. 443.
The material facts of the case upon which the petitioner relies
are that on July 25, a warrant was issued by a United States
Commissioner for the Eastern District of Texas charging him with
the crime for which a warrant had already been issued against him
by a commissioner of the Indian Territory, and upon which he seems
to have been arrested by the marshal. A demand was made by the
Texas marshal upon the marshal of the Indian Territory, but neither
the petition nor the return to the rule to show cause shows that
the demand was made before September first. Assuming that the
Commissioner for the Southern District of the Indian Territory
exceeded his authority in issuing and the marshal in executing his
warrant of arrest, it does not follow that the subsequent
indictment and conviction were void. If the petitioner was in the
actual custody of the marshal on September first, his subsequent
indictment and trial were valid though in the first instance he
might have been illegally arrested.
Page 167 U. S. 126
Thus, in
The Richmond v. United
States, 9 Cranch 102, an illegal seizure of a
vessel was made in the waters of a foreign power by a vessel
belonging to the navy for a violation of the embargo act, and it
was held that, although the seizure within the territorial
jurisdiction of a foreign power was an offense against that power,
this Court could take no cognizance of it, and the majority of the
Court was of opinion that the law did not connect that trespass
with the subsequent seizure by the civil authorities under the
process of the district court so as to annul the proceedings of
that court against the vessel. This ruling was approved in
The Merino, 9
Wheat. 391,
22 U. S. 402.
Indeed, there are many authorities which go to the extent of
holding that,
in criminal cases, a forcible abduction is
no sufficient reason why the party should not answer when brought
within the jurisdiction of the court which has the right to try him
for such an offense, and presents no valid objection to his trial
in such court.
Kerr v. People, 119 U.
S. 436,
119 U. S. 444;
Ex Parte Scott (1829), 9 B. & C. 446;
Lopez &
Sattler's Case, 1 Dearsly & Bell's Crown Cases 525;
State v. Smith (1829), 1 Bailey 283;
State v.
Brewster (1835), 7 Vt. 118;
Dow's Case (1851), 18
Penn.St. 37;
State v. Ross & Mann (1866), 21 Ia. 467.
Although it has been frequently held that, if a defendant
in a
civil case be brought within the process of the court by a
trick or device, the service will be set aside, and he will be
discharged from custody.
Union Sugar Refinery v.
Mathiesson, 2 Cliff. 304;
Wells v. Gurney, 8 B. &
C. 769;
Snelling v. Watrous, 2 Paige 315;
Williams v.
Bacon, 10 Wend. 636;
Metcalf v. Clark, 41 Barb. 45;
Stein v. Valkenburg, 3 B. & E. 65;
Williams v.
Reed, 5 Dutcher 385;
Carpenter v. Spooner, 2 Sand.
917;
Pfiffner v. Krapfell, 28 Ia. 27;
Moynahan v.
Wilson, 2 Flippen 130;
Small v. Montgomery, 17 F.
865;
Kaufman v. Kennedy, 25 F. 785. The law will not
permit a person to be kidnapped or decoyed within the jurisdiction
for the purpose of being compelled to answer to a mere private
claim, but in criminal cases, the interests of the public override
that which is, after all, a mere privilege from arrest.
Page 167 U. S. 127
But in this case, there was nothing of the kind. The crime was
committed and the prisoner arrested within the territory, and
within the local jurisdiction of the territorial court. Had he been
arrested without warrant by the marshal, or even by a private
individual, and detained in custody until after the first of
September, he might then have been indicted, although perhaps an
action might have lain against the person so arresting him for
false imprisonment. If the jurisdiction of the Texas court had
attached, or, in the language of the statute, had been "acquired,"
before September first, that would have been a good defense; but,
as already stated, all that had been done was to issue a warrant
which was never served, and there is nothing to show that a demand
was made for the petitioner before the first of September. Whether,
if such demand had been made, that would have itself vested the
Texas court with priority of jurisdiction is a question we are not
called upon to discuss. It is clear that the mere issue of a
warrant was not sufficient.
The petition must be
Denied.
