United States Ex Rel. Hughes v. Gault
United States Ex Rel. Hughes v. Gault
Opinion of the Court
delivered the opinion of the Court.
The relator was indicted for violation of the Anti-trust Act of July 2, 1890, (c. 647,) in the Eastern Division of the Northern District of Ohio. He appeared, upon notice, .before a Commissioner of Ottumwá, Iowa, and after a hearing he was ordered to be held for removal. Rev. Stat. § 1014. The relator thereupon applied to the judges of the District Court for a writ of habeas corpus on the grounds that the indictment was bad and that the Commissioner rejected evidence that the relator was innocent and that therefore there was no probable cause to
The Constitution does not require any preliminary heáring before a person charged with a crime against the United States is brought into the Court having jurisdiction of the charge. There he may deny the jurisdiction of the Court as he may deny his guilt, and the Constitution is satisfied by his right to contest it there. With immaterial exceptions any one in the United States is subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and may be required to stand trial wherever he is alleged to have committed the crime. In Tinsley v. Treat, 205 U. S. 20, 33, the conclusion is not that the appellant by being denied the right to present any evidence was deprived of his rights under the Constitution, but that he was denied ‘ a right secured by statute under the Constitution.’
As that instrument does not provide for bringing the accused into the power of the Court authorized to try him, a statute was necessary and is found in Rev. Stat. § 1014. This might have been interpreted as contemplating a summary order without other hearing than was necessary, when there was an indictment, to show that fact and that the person present was the person charged.
The relator testified before the Commissioner both in general terms and in detail that he and his company were innocent. The Commissioner excluded further details from him confirmatory of what he had sworn and evi
We do not regard the attack upon the indictment as needing discussion. It has been upheld by a number of District Courts and by the Circuit Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit as sufficient for removal purposes. It alleges that the Iowa Malleable Iron Company under the charge of the relator was party to an agreement to eliminate competition in interstate trade and to fix excessive and noncompetitive prices, and that the company and the relator are engaged in a conspiracy in restraint of trade among the States. The relator is not left in doubt of the effort of the grand jury to present him as criminal under the Sherman Act.
It is pointed out in Beavers v. Henkel, 194 U. S. 73, 83, that there are much stronger reasons for caution in surrendering an alleged criminal to a foreign nation than are required before removing a citizen from one place to another within the jurisdiction, yet in the latest case on extradition it is said that ‘habeas corpus is available only to inquire whether the magistrate had jurisdiction, whether the offence charged-is within the treaty and, by a somewhat liberal extension, whether there was any
But to recur to what we intimated at the beginning, the requirements of the statute, be they greater or less, are not requirements of the Constitution but only in aid of the Constitution, made, in rather a remote sense, ‘in order that any one accused shall not be deprived of this constitutional right ’ to be tried in the District wherein the crime shall have been committed. 205 U. S. 32. A statement in Harlan y. McGourin, 218 U. S. 442, 447, that Tinsley'v. Treat held the exclusion of evidence to be a denial of a right secured under the Federal Constitution is inaccurate as. we have shown. The relator’s contention that he has been deprived qf constitutional rights fails.
' it follows that the order of the District Court-'must be affirmed.
Order affirmed.
Dissenting Opinion
is qf the opinion that, by refusing to hear and to consider .evidence introduced or offered which bore upon the existence of probablé cause, the Commissioner did not merely commit error, but deprived the petitioner of his liberty without due process of law in violation of the Fifth Amendment, because he was denied a fair hearing. Tinsley v. Treat, 205 U. S. 20, 28, 30. Compare Chin Yow v. United States, 208 U. S. 8; Kwock Jan Fat v. White, 253 U. S. 454; United States v. Tod, 263 U. S. 149.
Reference
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- UNITED STATES Ex Rel. HUGHES v. GAULT, MARSHAL
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