The writ of habeas corpus will not issue unless the court under
whose warrant petitioner is held is without jurisdiction, nor can
the writ be used merely to correct errors.
The writ will not be granted when there is a remedy by writ of
error or appeal, except in rare and exceptional cases, and where,
as in this case, nothing in the record discloses special
circumstances justifying a departure from the regular course, the
writ should be quashed and the petition dismissed.
Riggins and Powell were indicted under §§ 5508, 5509,
Revised Statutes, in the District Court for the Northern Division
of the Northern District of Alabama at the October term, 1904,
thereof, and on the twenty-fourth day of October, 1904, the
indictment was remitted to the next session of the circuit court in
and for that division and district by order of the circuit court,
the district judge presiding. A capias was issued to take Riggins
into custody to answer the indictment, October 26, 1904. On the
same day, a severance was ordered as between Powell and Riggins,
and thereupon Riggins filed his petition for habeas corpus; the
writ was issued; the marshal made his return; the circuit court,
held by the district judge, heard the case, and discharged the
writ, and remanded Riggins to custody; a bill of exceptions was
signed and sealed, and an appeal to this Court was prayed, allowed,
and perfected, by the giving of a bond in the penal sum of $250,
which was approved by the judge; certificate of certain questions
of jurisdiction was filed, as also assignments of error, and a
citation was issued and served, all on the said twenty-sixth day of
October, 1904. The opinion of the district judge will be found
reported 134 F. 404.
Page 199 U. S. 548
The petition for habeas corpus alleged that Riggins was
restrained of his liberty by the United States marshal under the
capias issued on the indictment, a copy of which capias was
attached, as also a copy of the indictment. That indictment in
brief set up that Riggins and others entered into a conspiracy to
take one Maples, a citizen of the United States, of African
descent, from the state officers, to whose custody he had been
lawfully committed under a charge of murder, and to hang him until
he was dead, and that said conspiracy was formed and its purpose
executed because Maples was of African descent. The petition
averred that the indictment charged no offense punishable under the
laws of the United States; that the indictment did not show that
Riggins had violated any right, privilege, or immunity guaranteed
to Maples under the Constitution of the United States, or that any
federal law was violated providing for the punishment of such
offense, and that it did not appear from the indictment that the
conspiracy, combination, or confederation therein alleged was
formed or entered into under any law of the State of Alabama, or
that any law of that state authorized its citizens or other persons
to enter into any conspiracy to injure, threaten, or oppress Maples
by denying to him, by reason of his race, the right, privilege, and
immunity of a trial by jury to determine his guilt or innocence on
an indictment for murder pending against him in the courts of
Alabama.
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE FULLER delivered the opinion of the Court.
It is settled that the writ of habeas corpus will not issue
unless the court under whose warrant petitioner is held is without
jurisdiction, and that it cannot be used merely to correct errors.
Ordinarily the writ will not be granted when there is a remedy
Page 199 U. S. 549
by writ of error or appeal, yet, in rare and exceptional cases,
it may be issued, although such remedy exists.
In
New York v. Eno, 155 U. S. 89, it
was held that Congress intended to invest the courts of the Union
and the justices and judges thereof with power, upon writ of habeas
corpus, to restore to liberty any person within their respective
jurisdictions held in custody, by whatever authority, in violation
of the Constitution or any law or treaty of the United States; that
the statute contemplated that cases might arise when the power thus
conferred should be exercised during the progress of proceedings
instituted in a state court against the petitioner on account of
the very matter presented for determination by the writ of habeas
corpus, but that the statute did not imperatively require the
circuit court by that writ to wrest the petitioner from the custody
of the state officers in advance of his trial in the state court,
and that, while the circuit court had the power to do so, and could
discharge the accused in advance of his trial, if restrained in
violation of the Constitution, it was not bound in every case to
exercise such power immediately upon application being made for the
writ. The conclusion was that, in a proper exercise of discretion,
the circuit court should not discharge the petitioner until the
state court had finally acted upon the case, when it could be
determined whether the accused, if convicted, should be put to his
writ of error or the question determined on habeas corpus whether
he was restrained of his liberty in violation of the Constitution
of the United States.
These principles were fully discussed in the cases of the
appeals of Royall from judgments in habeas corpus in the circuit
court of the United States for the Eastern District of Virginia.
Ex Parte Royall, 117 U. S. 241.
And, in addition, Royall made an original application to this Court
for a writ of habeas corpus, which was denied upon the grounds
stated in the previous cases.
117 U. S. 117 U.S.
254.
While special reasons may exist why this should be the rule in
respect of proceedings in state courts which are not applicable
Page 199 U. S. 550
to cases in the courts of the United States, nevertheless we
have frequently applied the same principle to such cases.
In re
Chapman, 156 U. S. 211;
In re Lancaster, 137 U. S. 393;
In re Huntington, 137 U. S. 63;
Ex Parte Mirzan, 119 U. S. 584.
In
Chapman's case, we held that it was a judicious and
salutary general rule not to interfere with proceedings pending in
the courts of the District of Columbia or in the circuit courts of
the United States in advance of their final determination. And we
said:
"We are impressed with the conviction that the orderly
administration of justice will be better subserved by our declining
to exercise appellate jurisdiction in the mode desired until the
conclusion of the proceedings. If judgment goes against petitioner
and is affirmed by the court of appeals, and a writ of error lies
that is the proper and better remedy for any cause of complaint he
may have. If, on the other hand, a writ of error does not lie to
this Court, and the Supreme Court of the District was absolutely
without jurisdiction, the petitioner may then seek his remedy
through application for a writ of habeas corpus. We discover no
exceptional circumstances which demand our interposition in advance
of adjudication by the courts of the District upon the merits of
the case before them."
In
In re Lancaster, this Court denied an application
for leave to file a petition for habeas corpus in the circumstances
stated in the opinion, which opinion was as follows:
"The petitioners were indicted under sections 5508 and 5509 of
the Revised Statutes, on the twentieth of November, 1890, in the
Circuit Court for the Southern District of Georgia, and have been
taken into custody. They have not invoked the action of the circuit
court upon the sufficiency of the indictment by a motion to quash
or otherwise, but ask leave to file in this Court a petition for a
writ of habeas corpus upon the ground that the matters and things
set forth and charged do not constitute any offense or offenses
under the laws of the United States, or cognizable in the circuit
court, and that for other reasons the indictment
Page 199 U. S. 551
cannot be sustained. In this posture of the case, we must
decline to interfere."
We are of opinion that the rule therein laid down should have
been followed by the circuit court.
True, the present case is not one of the issue of the writ of
habeas corpus in respect of confinement under state authority, nor
of an application to this Court for the writ, but is the case of
custody taken under a capias issued on an indictment returned in
the district court and removed to the circuit court, and an
application to that court for the writ before defendant had been
compelled to take any step in the cause.
Defendant might have raised his objections to the indictment by
motion to quash or otherwise. If the indictment were held good, as
we are advised by the opinion of the circuit court it would have
been, defendant would have pleaded and gone to trial, and might
have been acquitted. If convicted, the remedy by writ of error was
open to him.
There is nothing in this record to disclose that there were any
special circumstances which justified a departure from the regular
course of judicial procedure. That departure is contrary to the
views we have heretofore explicitly expressed, and if we acquiesce
in this method of invoking our jurisdiction, we shall find
ourselves obligated to decide questions in advance of final
adjudication, contrary to the settled rule and to many decisions we
have heretofore announced upon the subject.
If we should affirm or reverse the final order in this case, we
should recognize a proceeding below which we would not ourselves
have entertained, and we are not disposed to hold that this manner
of testing such questions as are argued here ought to have been
pursued.
Final order reversed and cause remanded with a direction to
the Circuit Court to quash the writ of habeas corpus, and dismiss
the petition without prejudice.
