Prior to adoption of the Constitution, fugitives from justice
were surrendered between the states conformably to what were deemed
to be the controlling principles of comity.
It was intended by Art. IV of the Constitution to fully embrace
the subject of rendition of fugitives from justice between the
states and to confer authority upon Congress to deal with that
subject.
The Act of February 12, 1793, c. 7, 1 Stat. 302, now Rev.Stats.,
§ 5278, was enacted for the purpose of controlling the subject
of interstate rendition and its provisions were intended to be
dominant and, so far as they operated, controlling and exclusive of
state power.
Construed in the light of the principles which the statute
embodies, the provisions of Rev.Stats. § 5278, expressly or by
necessary implication, prohibit the surrender in one state for
removal as a fugitive from justice to another a person who clearly
was not and could not have been such a fugitive from the demanding
state.
The doctrine of asylum applicable under international law by
which a person extradited from a foreign country cannot be tried
for an offense other than the one for which the extradition was
asked does not apply to interstate rendition.
Where there is nothing in the record of a habeas corps
proceeding to show that the person held for surrender under
interstate rendition had not been in the demanding state, there is
no basis for this Court's assuming that the rendition order
conflicted with Rev.Stats. § 5278 in that respect, because the
record did show that such person had come into the surrendering
state from a state other than the one demanding.
An Act of Congress which leaves a subject with which Congress
has power to deal under the Constitution unprovided for does not
necessarily take the matters within the unprovided area out of any
possible state action, and so held that the exclusive character of
§ 5278 Rev.Stats. does not relate to the rendition between
criminals found in, but who had not fled to, the surrendering state
but had been involuntarily brought therein.
Page 240 U. S. 128
In construing an Act of Congress, this Court will not presume
that, because its provisions were not coterminous with the power
granted by Congress, it was so framed for the purpose of leaving
the subject, so far as unprovided for, beyond the operation of any
legal authority whatever, state or national.
The facts, which involve the construction of the provisions in
the federal Constitution relative to intrastate rendition and the
constitutionality, construction, and application of § 5278
Rev.Stats., providing for such rendition, are stated in the
opinion.
Page 240 U. S. 129
MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WHITE delivered the opinion of the Court.
The Governor of Oregon honored a requisition made by the
Governor of Texas for the delivery of the plaintiff in error for
removal to Texas as a fugitive from the justice of that state. The
accused was taken to Texas, tried for murder and a conspiracy to
commit murder, and acquitted. She was, however, not released from
custody, because she was ordered by the Governor of Texas, under a
requisition of the Governor of Georgia, to be held for delivery to
an agent of the State of Georgia for removal to that state as a
fugitive from justice.
Alleging these facts, an application for release by habeas
corpus was then presented to a state court upon the charge that the
extradition proceedings and the warrant of removal thereunder were
"wholly null and void" because
"your petitioner was never a fugitive from justice from the
State of Georgia to the State of Texas within the meaning and
intent of the laws of the United States regulating extradition
proceedings."
On the return to the writ, the court, finding the facts to be as
above stated, refused to discharge the petitioner, and the case
is
Page 240 U. S. 130
before us to review a judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeals,
which adopted the findings of the trial court and affirmed its
action.
All the federal questions involve the meaning of § 2 of
Article IV of the Constitution, which is as follows:
"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."
They also depend on § 5278 of the Revised Statutes, which
is but a reproduction of § 1 of the Act of February 12, 1793
(Chap. 7, 1 Stat. 302), giving effect to and establishing the
methods of procedure to be resorted to for the purpose of enforcing
the provisions of the Constitution on the subject to the extent
that their execution was by the statute provided for.
Broadly, there is but a single question for consideration: was
the order for rendition repugnant to the Constitution and the
provisions of the statute? But two inquiries are involved in its
solution: first, was the rendition order void because, under the
facts, there was no power to award it except by disregarding
express prohibitions or requirements of the Constitution or
statute, or by necessary implication adversely affecting rights
thereby created? and second, even although this was not the case,
was the order nevertheless void because, under the circumstances,
it dealt with a situation which, by the effect of the statute, was
taken out of the reach of state authority, even although no express
provision was made in the statute for dealing with such condition
by any authority, state or federal? We consider the two inquiries
under separate headings.
First. For the purpose of the solution of the inquiry
under this heading, we treat the following propositions as beyond
question: (a) that, prior to the adoption of the
Page 240 U. S. 131
Constitution, fugitives from justice were surrendered between
the states conformably to what were deemed to be the controlling
principles of comity.
Kentucky v.
Dennison, 24 How. 66,
65 U. S.
101-102; 2 Moore, Extradition & Interstate
Rendition, pp. 820
et seq.; (b) that it was intended by
the provision of the Constitution to fully embrace or rather to
confer authority upon Congress to deal with such subject.
Prigg v.
Pennsylvania, 16 Pet. 539;
Kentucky v.
Dennison, supra; 83 U. S.
Taintor, 16 Wall. 366;
Appleyard v. Massachusetts,
203 U. S. 222; (c)
that the Act of 1793 (now Rev.Stat. § 5278) was enacted for
the purpose of controlling the subject insofar as it was deemed
wise to do so, and that its provisions were intended to be
dominant, and, so far as they operated, controlling and exclusive
of state power.
Prigg v. Pennsylvania, supra; Kentucky v.
Dennison, supra, pp.
65 U. S.
104-105;
Mahon v. Justice, 127 U.
S. 700;
Lascelles v. Georgia, 148 U.
S. 537.
Coming in the light of these principles to apply the statute, it
is not open to question that its provisions, expressly or by
necessary implication, prohibited the surrender of a person in one
state for removal as a fugitive to another where it clearly appears
that the person was not and could not have been a fugitive from the
justice of the demanding state.
Ex Parte Reggel,
114 U. S. 642;
Roberts v. Reilly, 116 U. S. 80;
Hyatt v. New York, 188 U. S. 691;
Bassing v. Cady, 208 U. S. 386,
208 U. S.
392.
From this it results that the first inquiry here is did it
appear that the accused was a fugitive from the justice of the
State of Georgia? While the facts which we have stated do not
disclose affirmatively that she was ever in Georgia, and the date,
if at all, of her flight from that state, we think that she was
such a fugitive is to be assumed for three obvious reasons: because
there was no question of such fact made in the application for
habeas corpus, since it is apparent on the face of the application
that the ground of relief relied upon was not that there had
Page 240 U. S. 132
been no flight from Georgia, but that there was and could have
been no flight into Texas, since the coming into that state was
involuntary, and resulted solely from the extradition proceedings;
because that view of the subject was assumed, both in the elaborate
opinion of the court below and that of the dissenting judge, to be
unquestioned, and finally, because neither in the assignments of
error in this Court nor in the arguments pressed upon our attention
is the contrary view insisted upon or even suggested. From that
aspect, therefore, there is no ground for saying that the
extradition order conflicted with the express provision of the
statute.
Was there a conflict between the statute and the order for
removal to Georgia, arising by necessary implication from the fact
that the accused had been brought into the State of Texas on a
requisition upon the State of Oregon, and had not been released
from custody or been returned to Oregon, is the only remaining
question under this heading. While it is quite true, as pointed out
in the opinion of the court below, and in that of the judge who
dissented, that there are some decided cases and opinions expressed
by text writers which sustain the affirmative view of this inquiry,
the subject is here not an open one, since it has been expressly
foreclosed by the decision in
Lascelles v. Georgia,
148 U. S. 537. In
that case, the issue for decision was whether a person accused, who
had been removed to the State of Georgia from another state on
extradition proceedings for trial for a specified crime, was liable
in Georgia to be tried for another and different crime. Reviewing
the whole subject and calling attention to the broad lines of
distinction between international extradition of fugitives from
justice and interstate rendition of such fugitives under the
Constitution and the provisions of the act of Congress, and the
error of assuming that the doctrine of asylum applicable under
international law to the one case was applicable to the other, it
was
Page 240 U. S. 133
held that the right to prosecute for such other offense existed.
The Court said:
"Neither the Constitution nor the act of Congress providing for
the rendition of fugitives upon proper requisition being made
confers, either expressly or by implication, any right or privilege
upon such fugitives under and by virtue of which they can assert,
in the state to which they are returned, exemption from trial for
any criminal act done therein. No purpose or intention is
manifested to afford them any immunity or protection from trial and
punishment for any offenses committed in the state from which they
flee. On the contrary, the provision of both the Constitution and
the statutes extends to all crimes and offenses punishable by the
laws of the state where the act is done.
Kentucky v.
Dennison, 24 How. 66,
65 U. S.
101-102;
Ex Parte Reggel, 114 U. S.
642."
We are thus brought to the remaining heading, which is:
Second. Although the order for rendition was not in
conflict, either expressly or by necessary implication, with any of
the provisions of the Constitution or statute, was it nevertheless
void under the circumstances because it dealt with a subject with
which it was beyond the power of the state to deal, and which was
therefore brought, as the result of the adoption of the statute,
within exclusive federal control, although no provision dealing
with such subject is found in the statute? To appreciate this
question, the proposition relied upon needs to be accurately
stated. It is this: the Constitution provides for the rendition to
a state of a person who shall have fled from justice and be found
in another state -- that is, for the surrender by the state in
which the fugitive is found. This, it is conceded, would cover the
case and sustain the authority exercised, as the accused was a
fugitive from the justice of Georgia and was found in Texas. But
the proposition insists that the statute is not as broad as the
Constitution, since it provides not for the surrender of the
fugitive
Page 240 U. S. 134
by the state in which he is found, but only for his surrender by
the state into which he has fled, thus leaving unprovided for the
case of a fugitive from justice who is found in a state but who has
not fled into such state, because brought into such state
involuntarily by a requisition from another. And the argument is
supported by the contention that, as the statute exercises the
power conferred by the Constitution and is exclusive, it occupies
the whole field, and prohibits all state action even upon a subject
for which the statute has not provided, and which therefore in no
manner comes within its express terms. But we are of the opinion
that the contention rests upon a mistaken premise, and
unwarrantedly extends the scope of the decided cases upon which it
relies. The first because it erroneously assumes that, although the
statute leaves a subject with which there was power to deal under
the Constitution unprovided for, it therefore took all matters
within such unprovided area out of any possible state action. And
the second because, while it is undoubtedly true that in the
decided cases relied upon (
Kentucky v. Dennison, supra; Roberts
v. Reilly, 166 U. S. 80;
Hyatt v. New York, 188 U. S. 691) the
exclusive character of the legislation embodied in the statute was
recognized, those cases, when rightly considered, go no further
than to establish the exclusion by the statute of all state action
from the matters for which the statute expressly or by necessary
implication provided.
No reason is suggested, nor have we been able to discover any,
to sustain the assumption that the framers of the statute, in not
making its provisions exactly coterminous with the power granted by
the Constitution, did so for the purpose of leaving the subject, so
far as unprovided for, beyond the operation of any legal authority
whatever, state or national. On the contrary, when the situation
with which the statute dealt is contemplated, the reasonable
assumption is that, by the omission to
Page 240 U. S. 135
extend the statute to the full limits of constitutional power it
must have been intended to leave the subjects unprovided for not
beyond the pale of all law, but subject to the power which then
controlled them -- state authority until it was deemed essential by
further legislation to govern them exclusively by national
authority. In fact, such conclusion is essential to give effect to
the act of Congress, since to hold to the contrary would render
inefficacious the regulations provided concerning the subjects with
which it dealt. This becomes manifest when it is considered that,
if the proposition now insisted upon were accepted, it would follow
that the delivery of a criminal who was a fugitive from justice by
one state on a requisition by another would exhaust the power, and
the criminal therefore, whatever might be the extent and character
of the crimes committed in other states, would remain in the state
into which he had been removed without any authority to deliver him
to other states from whose justice he had fled. And this, while
paralyzing the authority of all the states, it must be moreover
apparent, would cause them all to become involuntary asylums for
criminals; for no method is suggested by which a criminal brought
into a state by requisition, if acquitted, could be against his
will deported, since to admit such power would be virtually to
concede the right to surrender him to another state as a fugitive
from justice for a crime committed within its borders.
It follows from what we have said that the court below was right
in refusing to discharge the accused, and its judgment therefore
must be, and it is,
Affirmed.
By stipulation of counsel, a similar judgment will be entered in
case of
Victor E. Innes v. Tobin, Sheriff, No. 533.