While temporarily in Florida, respondent was summoned to appear
at a hearing to determine whether he should be delivered into the
custody of a New York official to be taken to New York to testify
in a grand jury proceeding. This procedure, and adequate safeguards
to protect persons subject to it, were established in Florida by
the enactment of the Uniform Law to Secure the Attendance of
Witnesses from Within or Without a State in Criminal Proceedings,
which had been enacted also in New York, 39 other States and Puerto
Rico.
Held: the Florida statute, on its face, does not
violate the Privileges and Immunities Clause of Art. IV, § 2 of the
Constitution nor the Privileges and Immunities or Due Process
Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Pp.
359 U. S.
3-12.
100
So. 2d 149 reversed and cause remanded.
Page 359 U. S. 3
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER delivered the opinion of the Court.
This case is before us to determine the constitutionality of a
Florida statute entitled "Uniform Law to Secure the Attendance of
Witnesses from Within or Without a State in Criminal Proceedings."
Fla.Stat.1957, §§ 942.01-942.06. Respondent, a citizen of Illinois,
had traveled to Florida to attend a convention. In accordance with
the Florida statute, the Circuit Court of Dade County, Florida,
responded to a certificate executed by a judge of the Court of
General Sessions, New York County (under N.Y.Code Crim.Proc. §
618-a), by summoning respondent before it to determine whether he
was to be given into the custody of New York authorities to be
transported to New York to testify in a grand jury proceeding in
that State. The Circuit Court, ruling that the Florida statute
violated the Florida and the United States Constitutions, refused
to grant New York's request. 9 Fla.Supp. 153. The Supreme Court of
Florida affirmed this decision on the ground that the statute
violated the United States Constitution.
100
So. 2d 149. We granted certiorari, 365 U.S. 972, inasmuch as
this holding brings into question the constitutionality of a
statute now in force in forty-two States and the Commonwealth of
Puerto Rico. (Thirty-nine States and Puerto Rico joined in an
amici brief in support of the Uniform Act.) The
certificate filed with the Circuit Court of Dade County recites
that respondent's testimony is desired by a New York County grand
jury. That certificate is, under the terms of the statute,
"
prima facie
Page 359 U. S. 4
evidence of all the facts stated therein." Fla.Stat., 1957, §
942.02(2). Therefore, on the face of the record, respondent's
attendance at a grand jury investigation in New York is required by
the certificate filed with the Florida court and not withdrawn from
it. Neither party has suggested that this is not a live litigation,
nor do we find any ground for deeming the case to be moot.
The Uniform Act, as enacted by the Florida Legislature in 1941,
was formulated by the National Conference of Commissioners on
Uniform State Laws in its present form in 1936.
See
Handbook of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform
State Laws 333 (1936); 9 U.L.A. 91 (1957). The Uniform Act is
reciprocal. It is operative only between States which have enacted
it or similar legislation for compelling of witnesses to travel to,
and testify in, sister States.
The terms of the statute make quite clear the procedures to be
followed. The judge of the court of the requesting State files in
any court of record in the State in which the witness may be found
a certificate stating the necessity of the appearance of such
witness in a criminal prosecution or grand jury investigation in
the requesting State. The certificate must also state the number of
days the witness would be required to attend. Upon receipt of such
a certificate, a hearing is held by the court in which it is filed.
In the hearing, at which, under the Florida Act, the witness is
entitled to counsel, the court which received this certificate is
obliged to determine whether an order to attend the prosecution or
grand jury investigation in the requesting State would comply with
conditions set forth in the statute: that the witness is material
and necessary; that the trip to the requesting State would not
involve undue hardship to the witness; that the laws of the
requesting State and States through which the witness must travel
grant him immunity from arrest and the service of civil and
criminal process. Furthermore,
Page 359 U. S. 5
the statute provides that the witness must be tendered ten cents
a mile for each mile to and from the requesting State and five
dollars for each day that he is required to travel and attend as a
witness. Under the statute, the order of the forwarding State to
the witness may take two forms: first, the court may issue a
summons directing the witness to attend and testify in the
requesting State; second, if the certificate of the requesting
State so recommends, and if the recommendation is found to be
desirable by the court of the forwarding State, the court may
immediately deliver the witness to an officer of the requesting
State. Furthermore, if such a recommendation is made by the
requesting State, instead of the initial notification of hearing,
the court of the forwarding State may take the witness into
immediate custody. Whether the procedure be by notification and
then summons or by apprehension and then delivery, the hearing and
the issues to be determined therein are the same.
In
Kentucky v.
Dennison, 24 How. 66, Mr. Chief Justice Taney,
speaking of the obligation imposed by the Constitution upon the
Governor of Ohio to deliver to Kentucky one accused of violation of
the criminal laws of Kentucky, called attention
"to the obvious policy and necessity of this provision to
preserve harmony between States, and order and law within their
respective borders. . . ."
24 How. at
65 U. S. 103.
The same "policy and necessity" underlie the measure adopted by
Florida and forty-two other jurisdictions. Unless there is some
provision in the United States Constitution which clearly prevents
States from accomplishing this end by the means chosen, this Court
must sustain the Uniform Act. The absence of a provision in the
United States Constitution specifically granting power to the
States to legislate respecting interstate rendition of witnesses
presents no bar. To argue from the declaratory incorporation
Page 359 U. S. 6
in the Constitution, Art. IV, § 2, of the ancient political
policy among the Colonies of delivering up fugitives from justice
an implied denial of the right to fashion other cooperative
arrangements for the effective administration of justice is to
reduce the Constitution to a rigid, detailed, and niggardly code.
In adjudging the validity of a statute effecting a new form of
relationship between States, the search is not for a specific
constitutional authorization for it. Rather, according the statute
the full benefit of the presumption of constitutionality which is
the postulate of constitutional adjudication, we must find clear
incompatibility with the United States Constitution. The range of
state power is not defined and delimited by an enumeration of
legislative subject matter. The Constitution did not purport to
exhaust imagination and resourcefulness in devising fruitful
interstate relationships. It is not to be construed to limit the
variety of arrangements which are possible through the voluntary
and cooperative actions of individual States with a view to
increasing harmony within the federalism created by the
Constitution. Far from being devisive, this legislation is a
catalyst of cohesion. It is within the unrestricted area of action
left to the States by the Constitution.
The Supreme Court of Florida found that the statute violated the
Privileges and Immunities Clauses found in Art. IV, § 2 and in the
Fourteenth Amendment. The Privileges and Immunities Clause of Art.
IV, § 2 proscribes discrimination by a State against a citizen of
another State.
Slaughter-House
Cases, 16 Wall. 36,
83 U. S. 77.
There is no such discrimination here. The Florida statute applies
to all persons within the boundaries, and therefore subject to the
jurisdiction, of Florida. The finding of the Florida Supreme Court
that the right to ingress and egress is a privilege of national
citizenship protected by the Fourteenth Amendment raises an issue
that has more than once been stirred in opinions of this Court.
Page 359 U. S. 7
See concurring opinions in
Edwards v.
California, 314 U. S. 160,
314 U. S. 178,
and
314 U. S. 184,
in connection with
Crandall v.
Nevada, 6 Wall. 35. However, even if broad scope be
given to such a privilege, there is no violation of that privilege
by the Florida statute. Florida undoubtedly could have held
respondent within Florida if he had been a material witness in a
criminal proceeding within that State. And yet, this would not have
been less of a limitation on his claim of the right of ingress and
egress than is an order to attend and testify in New York. There
are restrictions on the exercise of the claimed constitutional
right. One such restriction derives from the obligation to give
testimony. This obligation has been sustained where it necessitated
travel across the Atlantic Ocean.
Blackmer v. United
States, 284 U. S. 421.
*
More fundamentally, this case does not involve freedom of travel
in its essential sense. At most, it represents a temporary
interference with voluntary travel. Particularly is this so in an
era of jet transportation when vast distances can be traversed in a
matter of hours. Respondent was perfectly free to return to Florida
after testifying in New York. Indeed, New York was obligated to pay
his way back to Florida. Or, after testifying, he could return to
Illinois or remain in New York. The
Page 359 U. S. 8
privilege of ingress and egress among the States which has been
urged in opinions is of hardier stuff. The privilege was to prevent
the walling off of States, what has been called the Balkanization
of the Nation. The requirement which respondent resists conduces,
it merits repetition, toward a free-willed collaboration of
independent States.
The more relevant challenge to the statute invalidated by the
Supreme Court of Florida is that it denies due process of law in
violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. Because of the generous
protections to be accorded a person brought or summoned before the
court of the forwarding State, procedural due process in the
hearing itself must be accorded and this is firmly established. The
Circuit Court of Dade County ruled that the absence of any
provision for bail in the procedure of apprehension and delivery
violated due process of law. Since the Supreme Court of Florida
expressly refrained from ruling whether the failure of the statute
to provide for bail for persons attached and delivered violated
either the Florida Constitution or the Fourteenth Amendment, and
since silence on bail is not tantamount to proscription of bail,
the claim that this silence of the statute is a violation of the
Fourteenth Amendment is a hypothetical question which need not now
be considered. We may add that the sole claim before us, as it was
the sole claim dealt with by the Supreme Court of Florida, is that
the statute is unconstitutional on its face. No claim is before us
that the administration of the statute in the particular
circumstances of this case violates due process.
The Supreme Court of Florida held that, inasmuch as what was
ordered was to be carried on in a foreign jurisdiction, the Florida
courts could not constitutionally be given jurisdiction to order it
(citing
Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S.
714). However, the Florida courts had immediate personal
jurisdiction over respondent by virtue of his
Page 359 U. S. 9
presence within that State. Insofar as the Fourteenth Amendment
is concerned, this gave the Florida courts constitutional
jurisdiction to order an act even though that act is to be
performed outside of the State.
See Steele v. Bulova Watch
Co., 344 U. S. 280;
Restatement, Conflict of Laws, § 94.
The primary purpose of this Act is not eleemosynary. It serves a
self-protective function for each of the enacting States. By
enacting this law, the Florida Legislature authorized and enabled
Florida courts to employ the procedures of other jurisdictions for
the obtaining of witnesses needed in criminal proceedings in
Florida. Today, forty-two States and Puerto Rico may facilitate
criminal proceedings, otherwise impeded by the unavailability of
material witnesses, by utilizing the machinery of this reciprocal
legislation to obtain such witnesses from without their boundaries.
This is not a merely altruistic, disinterested enactment.
In any event, to yield to an argument that benefiting other
States is beyond the power of a State would completely disregard
the inherent implications of our federalism within whose framework
our organic society lives and moves and has its being -- the
abundant and complicated interrelationship between national
authority and the States,
see Hopkins Federal Savings &
Loan Ass'n v. Cleary, 296 U. S. 315, and
between the States
inter sese. To yield to this argument
would foreclose to the States virtually all arrangements which
increase comity among the States. These extraconstitutional
arrangements are designed to solve "problems created by a
constitutional division of powers without disturbance of the
federal nature of our government." Clark, Joint Activity Between
Federal and State Officials, 51 Pol.Sci.Q. 230, 269. Reciprocal
legislation, such as the Uniform Law to Secure the Attendance of
Witnesses from Within or Without a State in Criminal Proceedings
and the
Page 359 U. S. 10
Acts providing reciprocal periods of grace in the registration
of out-of-state automobiles,
see Kane v. New Jersey,
242 U. S. 160, is
one such arrangement. The uniform laws proposed by the National
Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws and adopted by
individual States have (among other benefits) increased ease of
interstate commercial relationships by providing uniformity in
commercial laws through uniform Acts governing sales and negotiable
instruments. Uniform laws have frequently been concerned with
enforcement of criminal laws. Thus, the Uniform Criminal
Extradition Act, 9 U.L.A. 263 (1957), provides for rendition of
alleged criminals whose conduct does not bring them within the
constitutional extradition provision. U.S.Const., Art. IV, § 2;
Hyatt v. People ex rel. Corkran, 188 U.
S. 691. There are numerous cooperative undertakings
among States by the formation of agencies which study joint
problems and make suggestions for internal management within
individual States calculated to increase comity among the several
States. Interstate preserves are regulated through the device of
fusion of distinct state administrative agencies by means of joint
sessions and joint action. The Federal Government has also acted in
aid of States in matters of local concern through auxiliary
legislation (in game statutes, for example), through grants in aid,
and through legislation calling for cooperation between particular
state administrative agencies and federal agencies operating within
the same general area of regulation.
See Frankfurter and
Landis, The Compact Clause of the Constitution -- A Study in
Interstate Adjustments, 34 Yale L.J. 685, 688-691. About such
instances it has been said that they
"illustrate extraconstitutional forms of legal invention for the
solution of problems touching more than one state. They were
neither contemplated nor specifically provided for by the
Constitution."
Frankfurter and Landis,
supra, at 691.
Page 359 U. S. 11
The manifold arrangements by which the Federal and State
Governments collaborate constitute an extensive network of
cooperative governmental activities not formulated in the
Constitution but not offensive to any of its provisions or
prohibitions.
See Clark,
supra. Among the
examples of such devices discussed by Dr. Clark are the Selective
Service System, Civilian Conservation Corps, deportation law
enforcement, administration of the Pure Food and Drugs Act, and the
federal game statutes, and federal-state contracts for the boarding
of federal prisoners in state facilities.
To hold that these and other arrangements are beyond the power
of the States and Federal Government because there is no specific
empowering provision in the United States Constitution would be to
take an unwarrantedly constricted view of state and national
powers, and would hobble the effective functioning of our
federalism. Diffusion of power has its corollary of diffusion of
responsibilities with its stimulus to cooperative effort in
devising ways and means for making the federal system work. That is
not a mechanical structure. It is an interplay of living forces of
government to meet the evolving needs of a complex society.
The Constitution of the United States does not preclude
resourcefulness of relationships between States on matters as to
which there is no grant of power to Congress and as to which the
range of authority restricted within an individual State is
inadequate. By reciprocal, voluntary legislation, the States have
invented methods to accomplish fruitful and unprohibited ends. A
citizen cannot shirk his duty, no matter how inconvenienced
thereby, to testify in criminal proceedings and grand jury
investigations in a State where he is found. There is no
constitutional provision granting him relief from this obligation
to testify even though he must travel to another State to do so.
Comity among States, an end particularly to be
Page 359 U. S. 12
cherished when the object is enforcement of internal criminal
laws, is not to be defeated by an
a priori restrictive
view of state power.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Florida is reversed, and
the cause is remanded to that court for proceedings not
inconsistent with this opinion.
Reversed and remanded.
* Compulsion to travel across State boundaries to testify in
sister States antedates the United States Constitution.
See Laws of Maryland, November, 1785, Chapter I,
"An ACT to approve, confirm and ratify, the compact made by the
commissioners appointed by the general assembly of the Commonwealth
of Virginia, and the commissioners appointed by this state, to
regulate and settle the jurisdiction and navigation of Patowmack
and Pocomoke rivers, and that part of Chesapeake bay which lieth
within the territory of Virginia:"
"And in all cases of trial in pursuance of the jurisdiction
settled by this compact, citizens of either state shall attend as
witnesses in the other upon a summons from any court or magistrate
having jurisdiction being served by a proper officer of the county
where such citizen shall reside."
MR. JUSTICE DOUGLAS, with whom MR. JUSTICE BLACK concurs,
dissenting.
The right to free ingress and egress within the country and even
beyond the borders is a basic constitutional right, though it is
not contained
in haec verba in the Constitution. It had
been included in the Articles of Confederation, Article IV of which
provided in part:
"The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and
intercourse among the people of the different States in this Union,
the free inhabitants of each of these States, paupers, vagabonds,
and fugitives from justice excepted, shall be entitled to all the
privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States,
and the people of each State shall have free ingress and regress to
and from any other State. . . ."
As Chafee, Three Human Rights in the Constitution (1956), p.
185, states, the failure to make specific provision for this right
in the Constitution must have been on the assumption that it was
already included. For it is impossible to think that a right so
deeply cherished in the Colonies was rejected outright. "The
Convention carefully prevented states from passing tariff laws;
surely it did not want state immigration laws." Chafee,
op.
cit., supra, at 185. The Constitution was designed "to secure
the freest intercourse between the citizens of the different
Page 359 U. S. 13
States," said Chief Justice Taney in
The
Passenger Cases, 7 How. 283,
48 U. S. 492.
And he added:
"For all the great purposes for which the Federal government was
formed, we are one people, with one common country. We are all
citizens of the United States, and, as members of the same
community, must have the right to pass and repass through every
part of it without interruption, as freely as in our own
States."
Id., 48 U. S. 492.
This right of free ingress and egress is one "arising out of the
nature and essential character of the Federal Government."
Duncan v. Missouri, 152 U. S. 377,
152 U. S. 382;
Twining v. New Jersey, 211 U. S. 78,
211 U. S. 97. As
stated by the Court in
Williams v. Fears, 179 U.
S. 270,
179 U. S.
274:
"Undoubtedly the right of locomotion, the right to remove from
one place to another according to inclination, is an attribute of
personal liberty, and the right, ordinarily, of free transit from
or through the territory of any state is a right secured by the
14th Amendment and by other provisions of the Constitution."
It has often been called a right or privilege of national
citizenship,
Crandall v.
Nevada, 6 Wall. 35,
73 U. S. 44,
73 U. S. 49;
Ward v.
Maryland, 12 Wall. 418,
79 U. S. 430;
Slaughter House
Cases, 16 Wall. 36,
83 U. S. 79;
Twining v. New Jersey, supra, 211 U. S. 97;
Edwards v. California, 314 U. S. 160,
314 U. S.
178-181,
314 U. S. 183
(concurring opinions). As such, it is protected against state
action by the Privileges and Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth
Amendment.
Slaughter House Cases, supra, 83 U. S. 74-79;
In re Kemmler, 136 U. S. 436,
136 U. S.
448.
It has at times been considered under the protective care of the
Commerce Clause, subject to control by Congress but free from
stoppage or impairment by the States.
Edwards v. California,
supra.
In
Kent v. Dulles, 357 U. S. 116, we
held that this right to travel was a part of the citizen's
"liberty" within
Page 359 U. S. 14
the meaning of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth
Amendment.
"Freedom of movement across frontiers in either direction, and
inside frontiers as well, was a part of our heritage. Travel
abroad, like travel within the country, may be necessary for a
livelihood. It may be as close to the heart of the individual as
the choice of what he eats, or wears, or reads. Freedom of movement
is basic in our scheme of values."
Id. at
357 U. S.
126.
Whatever may be the sources of this right of free movement --
the right to go to any State or stay home as one chooses -- it is
an incident of national citizenship, and occupies a high place in
our constitutional values.
This right of national citizenship has been qualified. One
qualification was made by the Extradition Clause of Art. IV, § 2,
of the Constitution: [
Footnote
1]
"A person charged in any State with Treason, Felony, or other
Crime, who shall flee from Justice and be found in another State
shall, on Demand of the executive Authority of the State from which
he fled, be delivered up to be removed to the State having
Jurisdiction of the Crime."
But that limitation on the right of free movement applies only
when the citizen is a fugitive from the law.
Yet O'Neill is not a fugitive from justice. He carries no
criminal taint. He is wanted as a witness in New York. But there is
no provision of the Constitution which provides for the extradition
of witnesses by the States. That power is today judicially created.
But I find no authority on the part of the States to enlarge and
expand the power of extradition specifically restricted by
Page 359 U. S. 15
the Constitution to criminals. As stated in
People ex rel.
Corkran v. Hyatt, 172 N.Y. 176, 182, 64 N.E. 825, 826,
affirmed, 188 U. S. 691,
". . . no person can or should be extradited from one state to
another unless the case falls within the constitutional provision .
. . ; power which independent nations have to surrender criminals
to other nations as a matter of favor or comity is not possessed by
the states."
We allow today only what a constitutional amendment could
achieve. We in effect amend Art. IV, § 2 by construction to add
"witnesses" to the group now embraced in Art. IV, § 2.
This right of freedom of movement even of the innocent may not
be absolute. Perhaps a State could stop a migrant at its borders
for health inspection. There may be other narrow and limited
qualifications to this right of free ingress and egress which a
State may impose. But I know of no power on the part of a State to
pick a citizen up and forcibly remove him from its boundaries where
there is no basis of extradition.
Blackmer v. United
States, 284 U. S. 421, is
of no help here. There, the United States was requiring a citizen,
resident abroad, to return to this country to testify, and
penalizing him for his refusal. This was his home, to which he was
rooted and where his loyalties lay. The obligation was exacted by
the Federal Government as a requirement of national citizenship.
Congress has stated this responsibility in an Act, 62 Stat. 755, 18
U.S.C. § 1073, which,
inter alia, makes it a federal crime
for a person to move in interstate commerce "to avoid giving
testimony" in certain criminal proceedings. And Congress has made
explicit provision concerning the State to which the witness may be
removed. [
Footnote 2] I can
understand how this regulation of national citizenship can
Page 359 U. S. 16
be made by Congress which speaks with authority in the federal
field of interstate commerce. [
Footnote 3] I fail to see how a State can regulate any of
the incidents of national citizenship. I see no greater power on
the part of a State to snatch a law-abiding citizen from his abode
and send him to another State than to stop him at the border, as
was done in
Edwards v. California, supra, because it does
not like the cut of his jib. State action was precluded in
Edwards v. California, supra, even though Congress had not
acted. It is ever more obviously precluded where Congress has
acted. [
Footnote 4]
Reciprocal and uniform laws, like interstate compacts, doubtless
serve many useful purposes. But a State does not increase its
sovereign powers by making an agreement with another State. Whether
the right of ingress and egress be bottomed on the Privileges and
Immunities Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Commerce Clause,
Const. art. 1, § 8, cl. 3, or a basic "liberty" inherent in
national citizenship, I know of no way in which a State may take it
from a citizen. To say that there is no interference here because
O'Neill will be free to return to Florida later is to trifle with a
basic human right. The Court's argument enables the States, through
reciprocal laws, to generate power that they lack acting
separately. It speaks of the importance
Page 359 U. S. 17
of encouraging
"resourcefulness of relationships between States on matters as
to which there is no grant of power to Congress and as to which the
range of authority restricted within an individual State is
inadequate."
Yet, if the power is inadequate for either Florida or New York
acting separately (as I am sure it is), I fail to see how it can be
made adequate by the pooling of their inadequacies. To make it such
is indeed a saltatorial achievement. The fact that a resident of a
State can be compelled to testify in that State is no ground for
compelling him "to leave his State and go to some other State to
testify
viva voce."
In re Allen, 49 Pa.Dist.
& Co.R. 631, 640. His right to go or stay is an incident of
national citizenship, qualified only by an appropriate exercise of
federal power. [
Footnote 5]
The power of extradition was an expression of a "policy of
mutual support, in bringing offenders to justice,"
Kentucky v.
Dennison, 24 How. 66,
65 U. S. 100,
and to substitute a system of law, superior to state authority, for
the system of comity prevailing among sovereign nations.
Innes
v. Tobin, 240 U. S. 127,
240 U. S.
130-131. The Federal Act governing witnesses who are
fugitives is an assertion by Congress of control over our
nationals. Any policy of providing compulsory delivery of witnesses
from one State to another is, in other words, a federal policy. If
we allow the States to exercise that power as they like, we might
as well permit them to sanction compulsory delivery of
Page 359 U. S. 18
citizens from one State into another for purposes of being sued.
See Massachusetts v. Klaus, 145 App.Div. 798, 130 N.Y.S.
713, 722 (dissenting opinion). If it took Art. IV, § 2 of the
Constitution to provide for the compulsory delivery of a person
charged with a crime from one State to another, and a Federal Act
to require the delivery of witnesses over state lines, it would
seem to follow
a fortiori that further constitutional
provisions would be required to authorize one State to provide for
the compulsory delivery of an innocent person to another State.
See In re Allen, supra.
This is not giving the Constitution a niggardly construction. I
urge a liberal construction which will respect the civil rights of
the citizens. This right of people to choose such State as they
like for their abode, to remain unmolested in their dwellings, and
to be protected against being whisked away to another State
[
Footnote 6] has been, until
today, zealously guarded. Until now, it has been part and parcel of
the cherished freedom of movement protected by the
Constitution.
I would affirm the judgment entered by a unanimous vote of the
Florida Supreme Court.
[
Footnote 1]
This provision is implemented by an Act of Congress. 18 U.S.C.
c. 209.
[
Footnote 2]
Section 1073 provides:
"Violations of this section may be prosecuted only in the
Federal judicial district in which the original crime was alleged
to have been committed or in which the person was held in custody
or confinement."
[
Footnote 3]
See H.R.Rep. No. 1458, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 2;
H.R.Rep. No. 1596, 73d Cong., 2d Sess., p. 2;
Hemans v. United
States, 163 F.2d 228, 238-239.
[
Footnote 4]
In situations no less impressive than the present, we have
barred state action where, as here, Congress has acted in the same
field.
Charleston & W.C. R. Co. v. Varnville Furniture
Co., 237 U. S. 597;
Hines v. Davidowitz, 312 U. S. 52;
Pennsylvania v. Nelson, 350 U. S. 497. In
Charleston & W.C. R. Co. v. Varnville Furniture Co.,
supra, at
237 U. S. 604,
Mr. Justice Holmes, speaking for the Court, said:
"When Congress has taken the particular subject matter in hand,
coincidence is as ineffective as opposition, and a state law is not
to be declared a help because it attempts to go farther than
Congress has seen fit to go."
[
Footnote 5]
The Report of Committee on Securing Compulsory Attendance of
Non-Resident Witnesses of the National Conference of Commissioners
on Uniform State Laws, as reported in 8 Wigmore on Evidence, §
2195(e), states:
"This character of legislation is not free from constitutional
difficulties, and the only case which we have found in which the
constitutionality thereof has been directly upheld is the case of
Massachusetts v. Klaus, 145 App.Div. 798, 130 N.Y.S. 713.
In the case cited, the constitutionality of the New York statutes
was upheld in an opinion by Judge Scott, but there is a strong
dissenting opinion by Judge Laughlin."
[
Footnote 6]
The harshness of this procedure is emphasized by a feature of
this extradition law on which the Florida Supreme Court has not yet
passed. The New York statute (N.Y.Code Crim.Proc. § 618-a;
and
see Fla.Stat., 1957, § 942.02) gives the witness who is
extradited only $5 a day for his maintenance in New York, a sum
plainly inadequate in light of today's cost of living.