A state may enact that a conspiracy to accomplish what an
individual is free to do shall be a crime.
The New York Penal Law, § 580, 583, making an agreement to
commit any act for the perversion of justice or the due
administration of the laws a misdemeanor if an overt act is
committed, may include the withdrawal by connivance of a person
from an insane asylum to which he had duly been committed by order
of court as a lunatic.
A party to a crime who afterwards leaves the state is a fugitive
from justice; and, for purposes of interstate rendition, it does
not matter what motive induced the departure.
The purpose of the writ of habeas corpus is not to substitute
the judgment of another tribunal upon the facts or the law of the
matter to be tried.
The federal Constitution peremptorily requires that, upon proper
demand, the person charged with crime shall be delivered up to be
removed to the state having jurisdiction of the crime. There is no
discretion allowed, nor any inquiry into motives; nothing is said
in regard to habeas corpus, and the technical sufficiency of the
indictment is not open.
Questions as to the sufficiency of an indictment charging an
admittedly insane person with having committed a crime are for the
courts of the state having jurisdiction of the crime to determine
according to the law of that state. They cannot be determined by
the courts of another state on habeas corpus proceedings in
interstate rendition.
The constitutionally required surrender of an identified
fugitive from justice on a demand made in due form is not to be
interfered with by the summary process of habeas corpus upon
speculation as to what ought to be the result of a trial in the
place where the Constitution provides for its taking place.
The facts, which involve questions arising out of a demand made
by the governor of one state upon the
Page 235 U. S. 433
Governor of another state for the rendition of a fugitive from
justice who had been indicted by the demanding state for conspiracy
to effect his own escape from the state asylum to which he had been
committed as a lunatic by order of the court, are stated in the
opinion.
Page 235 U. S. 438
MR. JUSTICE HOLMES delivered the opinion of the Court.
This is an appeal from a final order discharging the appellee on
habeas corpus. Thaw was held upon a warrant from the Governor of
New Hampshire for his extradition to New York in pursuance of a
demand of the governor of the latter state. He was alleged to be a
fugitive from justice, and a copy of an indictment found by a New
York grand jury accompanied the demand. The indictment alleged that
Thaw had been committed to the Matteawan State Hospital for the
insane under an order of court reciting that he had been acquitted
at his trial upon a former indictment on the ground of insanity,
and that his discharge was deemed dangerous to public safety. It
then alleged that, being thus confined, he conspired with certain
persons to procure his escape from the hospital, and did escape, to
the obstruction of justice and of the due administration of the
laws. By the New York Penal Law, an agreement to commit any act for
the perversion or obstruction of justice or of the due
administration of the laws is a misdemeanor if an overt act beside
the agreement is done to effect the object. Penal Law, §§
580, 583.
In the wide range taken by the argument for the appellee, it was
suggested, among other things, that it was not a crime for a man
confined in an insane asylum to walk out if he could, and that
therefore a conspiracy to do it could not stand in any worse case.
But that depends on the statute. It is perfectly possible, and even
may be rational, to enact that a conspiracy to accomplish what an
individual is free to do shall be a crime. An individual is free to
refuse his custom to a shop, but a conspiracy to abstain from
giving custom might and in some jurisdictions probably would be
punished. If the acts conspired for tend to obstruct the due
administration of the laws, the statute makes the conspiracy
criminal, whether the acts themselves are so or not. We do not
regard it as open
Page 235 U. S. 439
to debate that the withdrawal, by connivance, of a man from an
insane asylum to which he had been committed as Thaw was did tend
to obstruct the due administration of the law. At least the New
York courts may so decide. Therefore the indictment charges a
crime. If there is any remote defect in the earlier proceedings by
which Thaw was committed, which we are far from intimating, this is
not the time and place for that question to be tried.
If the conspiracy constituted a crime, there is no doubt that
Thaw is a fugitive from justice. He was a party to the crime in New
York, and afterwards left the state. It long has been established
that, for purposes of extradition between the states, it does not
matter what motive induced the departure.
Roberts v.
Reilly, 116 U. S. 80;
Appleyard v. Massachusetts, 203 U.
S. 222,
203 U. S.
226-227. We perceive no ground whatever for the
suggestion that, in a case like this, there should be a stricter
rule.
The most serious argument on behalf of Thaw is that, if he was
insane when he contrived his escape, he could not be guilty of
crime, while if he was not insane, he was entitled to be
discharged, and that his confinement and other facts scattered
through the record require us to assume that he was insane. But
this is not Thaw's trial. In extradition proceedings, even when, as
here, a humane opportunity is afforded to test them upon habeas
corpus, the purpose of the writ is not to substitute the judgment
of another tribunal upon the facts or the law of the matter to be
tried. The Constitution says nothing about habeas corpus in this
connection, but peremptorily requires that, upon proper demand, the
person charged shall be delivered up to be removed to the state
having jurisdiction of the crime. Art. IV, § 2.
Pettibone
v. Nichols, 203 U. S. 192,
203 U. S. 205.
There is no discretion allowed, no inquiry into motives.
Kentucky v.
Dennison, 24 How. 66;
Pettibone v.
Nichols, 203 U. S. 192,
203 U. S. 203.
The technical sufficiency of the indictment is not open.
Munsey v.
Clough, 196 U.S.
Page 235 U. S. 440
364,
196 U. S. 373.
And even if it be true that the argument stated offers a nice
question, it is a question as to the law of New York which the New
York courts must decide. The statute that declares an act done by a
lunatic not a crime adds that a person is not excused from criminal
liability except upon proof that at the time "he was laboring under
such defect of reason as 1, not to know the nature and quality of
the act he was doing, or 2, not to know that the act was wrong."
Penal Law, § 1120.
See § 34. The inmates of
lunatic asylums are largely governed, it has been remarked, by
appeal to the same motives that govern other men, and it well might
be that a man who was insane and dangerous nevertheless in many
directions understood the nature and quality of his acts as well,
and was as open to be affected by the motives of the criminal law
as anybody else. How far such considerations shall be taken into
account it is for the New York courts to decide, as it is for a New
York jury to determine whether, at the moment of the conspiracy,
Thaw was insane in such sense as they may be instructed would make
the fact a defense.
Pierce v. Creecy, 210 U.
S. 387,
210 U. S. 405;
Charlton v. Kelly, 229 U. S. 447,
229 U. S. 462.
When, as here, the identity of the person, the fact that he is a
fugitive from justice, the demand in due form, the indictment by a
grand jury for what it and the Governor of New York allege to be a
crime in that state, and the reasonable possibility that it may be
such all appear, the constitutionally required surrender is not to
be interfered with by the summary process of habeas corpus upon
speculations as to what ought to be the result of a trial in the
place where the Constitution provides for its taking place. We
regard it as too clear for lengthy discussion that Thaw should be
delivered up at once.
Final order reversed.
