Commonwealth ex rel. Brown, Appellant, v. Baldi.
Supreme Court of Pennsylvania
June 4, 1954
378 Pa. 504 | 106 A.2d 777
This case likewise rules and governs the instant case and requires us to hold, as do the dozen other authorities hereinabove cited, that a joint bank account or a joint certificate of deposit in the name of two persons as joint tenants with right of survivorship creates, even when all the funds are contributed by one of the two joint tenants, (prima facie) an immediate, valid inter vivos gift.
For these reasons, and under the aforesaid authorities, I would hold that each joint tenant was respectively entitled as survivor to the certificates in which he was named as aforesaid.
Mr. Justice MUSMANNO joins in this dissenting opinion.
David Levinson, for appellant.
James W. Tracey, Jr., Assistant Deputy Attorney General, for State of Georgia.
OPINION BY MR. CHIEF JUSTICE HORACE STERN, June 4, 1954:
This is an appeal from an order of the court below dismissing a petition for a writ of habeas corpus and ordering the relator to be delivered to the custody of agents of the State of Georgia for return to that State.
The relator, Edward Brown, was arrested in Philadelphia on March 31, 1952, by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation on a charge of illegal flight from imprisonment in Georgia. He was turned over to the Philadelphia police and committed to prison by a magistrate to await extradition papers from that State. On April 23, 1952, the Governor of Pennsylvania issued a warrant for his rendition to Georgia. A few days thereafter he petitioned the court below for a writ of habeas corpus alleging that he had been subjected during his imprisonment in Georgia to cruel and unusual punishment in violation of his constitutional rights, and, if returned there, would again be subjected to such punishment. A motion to intervene on the part of Georgia was granted by the court but its further motion to dismiss the proceedings was denied.
A number of hearings were held on the relator‘s petition at which it appeared that he had pleaded guilty in Georgia in 1937 to a charge of murder and was sentenced to life imprisonment. A few months later he escaped to Cincinnati. Recaptured in June,
Notwithstanding its findings as to past facts and future probabilities the court below properly concluded that it was bound by the decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States and of this State to dismiss relator‘s petition, which it accordingly did.
The latest decision of the United States Supreme Court, and one that clearly controls the present case, was rendered in the case of Sweeney, Sheriff, v. Woodall, 344 U. S. 86. There a fugitive from an Alabama prison was arrested in Ohio and held for return to Alabama pursuant to proceedings instituted by the Governor of that State. He claimed in Ohio that his confinement in Alabama amounted, and would again amount, to cruel and unusual punishment contrary to the
Even before the Sweeney v. Woodall case similar decisions had been rendered by United States Courts of Appeals in the District of Columbia (Johnson v. Matthews, 182 F. 2d 677), in the Eighth Circuit (Davis v. O‘Connell, 185 F. 2d 513), and in the Ninth Circuit (Ross, Sheriff, v. Middlebrooks, 188 F. 2d 308). In each of those cases the relator alleged that he had been subjected to cruel punishment while imprisoned in the demanding State and would be again subjected to such punishment if returned there, but it was uniformly held that if the fugitive‘s constitutional rights were violated in the State where he had been imprisoned it was in that State that he must protect those rights, either in the courts of the State itself or, if it became necessary to appeal thereto (
Our own court, following the decision in the Sweeney v. Woodall case, has thrice dealt with this same problem. In Commonwealth ex rel. Henderson v. Baldi, 372 Pa. 463, 93 A. 2d 458, it was held, in proceedings
Relator, taking note of a sentence in the court‘s opinion in Sweeney v. Woodall that “Respondent makes no showing that relief is unavailable to him in the courts of Alabama,” offered evidence designed to show that he would not have access to the courts of Georgia if returned to that State. There was testimony that some years in the past letters to higher prison authorities and to lawyers written by relator and other prisoners had been intercepted by wardens and guards and prevented from reaching the persons intended. It was claimed also that relator would find it difficult to obtain counsel in Georgia who would be willing to represent him and witnesses who would not be afraid to support him in his allegations of brutal treatment. But the testimony thus presented and the apprehensions thus expressed cannot be accepted, and were not accepted by the court below, as proof that if relator were
In his concurring opinion in the Sweeney v. Woodall case, Mr. Justice Frankfurter said: “We cannot assume unlawful action of the prison officials which would prevent the petitioner from invoking the aid of the local courts nor readily open the door to such a claim ... Our federal system presupposes confidence that a demanding State will not exploit the action of an asylum State by indulging in outlawed conduct to a returned fugitive from justice.”
The suggestion that if the relator were returned to Georgia he would be deprived of legal help and protection must be rejected. Apart from relator‘s own competent counsel, the Assistant Attorney General of the State of Georgia and the able Philadelphia counsel appointed by the State of Georgia as a Deputy Assistant Attorney General, both of whom appeared in the present proceedings on behalf of that State, can, with confidence, be relied upon to see to it that relator will be afforded every reasonable opportunity to communicate with counsel and have all necessary access to the courts for the protection of any constitutional or other legal rights to which he may be entitled.
Order affirmed.
CONCURRING OPINION BY MR. JUSTICE ALLEN M. STEARNE:
I concur in the opinion of the Court. Our decision in Commonwealth ex rel. Henderson v. Baldi, 372 Pa. 463, 93 A. 2d 458 (1953), which the majority opinion cites with approval, was the unanimous opinion of the five members of the Court who heard argument of the appeal (Chief Justice DREW having resigned and
DISSENTING OPINION BY MR. JUSTICE MUSMANNO:
The clanking of chains on a person‘s body is an ominous and incongruous sound in a country that was born amid the music of a Liberty Bell.
It was because of the brutality visited upon mankind down through the centuries by monarchs and their hirelings that the patriot fathers of this Republic interdicted in the
On April 23, 1952, the Governor of Pennsylvania, on demand of the Governor of Georgia, issued a warrant of extradition for the return to Georgia of Edward Brown who had fled from imprisonment in that State. The prisoner applied to the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia for a writ of habeas corpus, and, at the hearing which followed in the courtroom of Judge Levinthal, there unfolded such a tale of torture, cruelty and sadistic punishment that one could believe this was a story of happenings in a Nazi concentration camp and not the recital of events in one of the sovereign States of America.
Edward Brown testified that during his imprisonment he was shackled with chains between both feet, that his right foot had to drag a 20 foot chain with a 15 pound ball and that his left ankle was encased in a pick. Asked to describe this latter device, he said that a blacksmith removes the handle from a pick, cuts “the eye out of the pick” and then rivets the metal to the prisoner‘s leg. “Q. Did the pick that you had on have points to it or were the points sawed off the way that shows? [Referring to a photograph]. A. It had sharp points. Q. How long would you say these prongs extended before and after your leg? A. About a foot on each end of my leg this way (indicating), and it was made in the form that if I walked, it would stick in the ground; if I would run, it would stick me back here (indicating).“.
Brown described food that could not be eaten and unsanitary conditions that cannot be described, he told of being driven to work in swamps infested with poisonous snakes. There are over 150 pages of this harrowing testimony in the record, evidence produced not only by the relator but by seven other former inmates of Georgia‘s “work camps.” Listed among the many crude and refined tortures to which prisoners were subjected were the “staking treatment,” the “sweat box“, the “dipping barrel,” and the “Georgia rack.”
Asked to tell about the “staking treatment,” the prisoner testified: “A. They stake you out and stretch you just as wide as they can stretch you and they nail a stake to this hand, a stake to there, a stake to your feet, and a stake to here, putting a chain across your chest and stake you to that (indicating.) Q. When they got through staking you out they did what? A. They poured black molasses all over your face and all over your body. You are stripped down to your body. They pour black molasses syrup all over you and flies and insects and bees and everything else bite you and stick you and do everything else to you. Also they turn loose the dogs.”
The “sweat box” treatment locked the prisoner into a heavy wooden structure about five feet high and some three feet square, thus not high enough to permit standing or deep enough to permit sitting. A small hole “two inches in circumference” allowed for the only ventilation. Prisoners were sealed into this medieval contraption for days at a time while a hot Georgia sun battering at a thin roof produced a temperature of 120 degrees.
The “dipping barrel” routine chained the prisoner in a wooden hogshead in a kneeling position, his head about two feet below the top of the barrel. When the water, running in through a hose, reached the prisoner‘s chin he was given two tin cups with which to furiously bail or suffer “accidental drowning“.
The so-called “Georgia rack” was an apparatus which “stretched” the prisoner. With feet attached to an immovable hook and hands tied to a cable, a turning crank on a windlass pulled the body to its utmost tension point and then released it—over and over. Asked what were the results of this treatment, Brown replied: “It almost pulled you to pieces. I have a knot in my back from the results of that now.”
After relating the “stretching” operation, Brown told of being “hung up to a tree by the wrists with chains“: “They hung me up just as high as I could reach. My toes were barely touching the ground, and they left me there and they beat me while I was hanging there.”
He was placed in stocks and beaten; a Captain Dyke rubbed his feet with a corncob and then com-
The testimony revealed other blasphemous and inhuman treatment horrible to appraise and revolting to contemplate. It may be, as the majority of this Court believes, that the processes of law cannot open the door at which the relator pleads for relief, but the world must know to what the law dooms the prisoner so that in some manner, through legislative or judicial interposition, other victims may be spared the living hell to which Edward Brown is being returned. I believe, however, that the law has supplied this Court with numerous keys to open the door of sanctuary and save Edward Brown from the fate which inevitably and unjustly awaits him.
Judge LEVINTHAL in the court below was convinced of the authenticity of the evidence presented before him and stated in his Opinion that “relator, while confined in the Work Camps at Cochran and at Blackshear, Georgia, was subjected to cruel and unusual punishment“. He further stated that “when returned to the custody of Georgia he (Brown) is likely again to be subjected to such punishment.”
Although obviously impressed with the relator‘s case for discharge on a writ of habeas corpus, the court below believed that it had no power to grant relief because of the decision by the Supreme Court of the United States in the case of Sweeney v. Woodall, 344 U. S. 86. That case, however, is very clearly distinguishable from the one at bar. The Woodall case went up to the Supreme Court of the United States from a Federal District Court, whereas this is an appeal from
Although the crime which was originally committed in Georgia by Brown has no bearing on the question involved in this proceeding, I believe it is only fair to submit the petitioner‘s view of what occurred, in view of the statement in the Majority Opinion that the defendant pleaded guilty in 1937 to a charge of murder. Paragraphs 7 and 8 of the petition for the writ of habeas corpus abbreviatedly assert the following: On April 24, 1937, at Macon, Georgia, Brown seriously injured one of his fingers. He hailed a cab to take him to a hospital. A woman, also colored, and under the influence of liquor, insisted that she wanted the cab. Her husband, the deceased, Julius Kemp, (and whom Edward Brown had previously never known,) drew a switch-blade knife and attempted to cut Brown.
As Brown pushed Kemp away from him, Kemp was cut in the neck by his own knife while it was still in his own hand. The cutting was accidental and unintentional and, on Brown‘s part, clearly in self-defense.
The cab driver then took both men to the hospital, but at the hospital they were ignored for 2 hours. In this time Kemp continued to bleed and eventually died from loss of blood. Brown was charged with murder
It may be in order to add also that following his escape from Georgia on two different occasions Brown conducted himself as a law-abiding citizen. Evidence introduced in the lower court at the habeas corpus proceedings established that during the escape periods he was steadily and gainfully employed. Employers testified to his industry, sobriety and loyalty. Employers outside of Philadelphia submitted letters of recommendation as to Brown‘s good work and his good reputation for being law-abiding.
On July 8, 1941, the State of Pennsylvania adopted the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act (
The scope of inquiry in Pennsylvania habeas corpus proceedings is much more extensive than that allowed by Federal procedure. Section 1, of the Pennsylvania Habeas Corpus Act of July 1, 1937, P. L. 2664;
The Majority Opinion, in limiting the inquiry in extradition habeas corpus proceedings, would seek to force it into the strait jacket of the Act of May 24, 1878, P. L. 137, as amended by the Act of June 4, 1879, P. L. 95, which did say that the—“... investigation and hearing under said writ shall be limited to the question of identification, and shall not enter into the merits or facts of the charge, or indictment.”
However, that strait jacket was ripped apart by the Act of 1937, which specifically states in Section 2: “Such examination into the facts of the case shall include an examination by the judge into all the proceedings held and evidence produced before a judge, magistrate, justice of the peace, or other officer sitting as a committing judge or magistrate, and if such proceedings shall, after inquiry, be deemed to have been conducted not in accordance with law, or the evidence deemed insufficient, the prisoner shall be discharged.”
If the Legislature had not intended, in the Act of 1937, to broaden the field of the inquest, the passage of the legislation indicated would have been a mere parliamentary vocal exercise. However, the solemn seriousness of that Act can be noted in the quoted section which enlarges the examination by the judge into “all the proceedings held and evidence produced.”
Section 10 of the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act of 1941, makes it mandatory upon State authorities to inform fugitives of their right to apply for a writ of habeas corpus, and it does not in the reference to habeas corpus proceedings, change, modify or limit in any way the language of the Pennsylvania Habeas Corpus Act of 1937.
The law may move on leaden feet, but once planted on the solid rock of established justice, it cannot be
The question involved in this case came squarely before the Pennsylvania Superior Court in the case of Comm. ex. rel. Mattox v. Supt. of County Prison, 152 Pa. Superior Ct. 167. On July 11, 1942, Mattox was arrested by virtue of a warrant issued by the Governor of Pennsylvania pursuant to a request for his extradition by the State of Georgia to answer a charge of assault with intent to kill. At the ensuing hearing, on the petition for a writ of habeas corpus sought by Mattox, it developed that the state of feeling against Mattox in Elbert County, Georgia, (locale of the alleged crime) was such that a fair and impartial trial would be impossible, and that Mattox faced grave danger of being lynched. The lower court granted the writ and discharged the relator. The Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed the action. In a brave and brilliant opinion written by the distinguished President Judge KELLER, it was pointed out that Section 10 of the Uniform Criminal Extradition Act of July 8, 1941, supra, specifically provides that “the prisoner, whose extradition is sought, shall have the right to apply for a writ of habeas corpus,” and that under the Habeas Corpus Act of July 1, 1937, P. L. 2664, “the judge granting the writ of habeas corpus ‘may inquire into the facts of the case.‘” This means that the judge may “inquire into the facts averred as ground for the relator‘s claim that he should not be delivered over to the representatives of the demanding State.” Pres-
Judge KELLER in his Opinion recalled the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Pierce v. Alabama, 306 U. S. 354, where the Court said: “When a claim is properly asserted—as in this case—that a citizen whose life is at stake has been denied the equal protection of his country‘s laws on account of his race, it becomes our solemn duty to make independent inquiry and determination of the disputed facts.”
Judge KELLER also cited Marbles v. Creecy, 215 U. S. 63, where the Supreme Court affirmed an order refusing a writ, stating that the writ could not issue on a “mere suggestion—certainly not one unsupported by proof” Commenting on this, Judge Keller said that this language implied that: “... if the charge or averment on behalf of the relator was not a ‘mere suggestion, unsupported by proof,’ as in that case, but had been established to the satisfaction of the judge, who granted the writ of habeas corpus, and who pursuant to law, had inquired into the facts alleged, it would have been a sufficient ground for releasing the relator from custody and refusing to deliver him up to the representatives of the demanding State.”
This same line of reasoning appears in the Woodall case which the Majority here, in my opinion, incorrectly sets up as a barrier across the highway of release for Edward Brown. The Supreme Court pointed out
In the instant case, it is not a question of assumption. The record is replete with evidence that Edward Brown would be without opportunity to resort to the courts of Georgia for the protection of his constitutional rights. The Majority makes the mistake of pitting assumption against proved facts. Who does not remember the tragic case of Frank v. Mangum, 237 U. S. 309, where the prisoner was refused the writ of habeas corpus because it was assumed that he would have all the protection dictated by law in the State of Georgia? In spite of this assumption, a mob broke into the prison in which Frank was being held, overpowered the guards, seized Frank, carried him through the night a distance of 125 miles and then hanged him to a tree.*
The Majority Opinion confidently asserts that upon Brown‘s return to Georgia he will have no difficulty
Brown testified: “Q. Mr. Brown, while you were at Blackshear did you ever attempt to communicate with a lawyer or with friends, asking them to get a lawyer for you in order to try to relieve your condition there of punishment? A. Yes, sir, I did. Q. How often? A. Every time I could get a chance to write a letter. You are only allowed to write one letter a week, and whenever you write a letter concerning something like that the warden stops in and tear it up and beats you all up, and you are scared to even do anything else about writing . . . Q. What happened to that letter? A. It was torn up in front of my face and I got knocked in the head with a piece of iron bolt. Q. Who tore it up? A. Mr. Ammon. Q. Who was he? A. That was the warden. Q. Who beat you? A. Mr. Ammon and his guards, Mr. Roundtree and Mr. Teuton. They held the gun on me and he done the beating.”
. . .
Nathan Jones also testified that he never saw any lawyers come into the prison camp to visit prisoners.
Another prisoner, Huel Thompson (white) testified: “Q. How about a letter to a lawyer, did any get through that you know of? A. I tried three. The first two I didn‘t say nothing about. They tore the last one up in my face and didn‘t even give me a visit for seven months. Q. Were you punished? A. My visiting and writing was taken away from me for seven months.”
And then even if a lawyer could be found who would take the case without remuneration and he could file a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, how would he obtain witnesses when it is obvious that prisoners cannot proceed of their own will to court to testify, and, it is not likely, in view of the evidence which we have seen, that a venal warden would willingly allow them to go to court. And if subpoenaed, would the witnesses,
It is a facile thing to say that one has the right to assert oneself in court, but of what avail is that right without the medium for its expression? An academic right without the possibility of fulfillment is of no more substance than a scabbard without a sword, a library without a book, or a robe without a judge.
No one questions or could reasonably question that, if the facts proved beyond the peradventure of doubt that upon return to the demanding state the prisoner would be lynched, the asylum state would not refuse relief, any more than it could refuse relief if it could be established that the prisoner was to be executed without a trial. The thongs of technical procedure do not bind our hands to the point that we are helpless to prevent outright murder. With the type and quantity of evidence in this record which practically guarantees cruel and unusual punishment to the relator, how can we send him back on the unsubstantial theory that the courts of Georgia are open to hear his cause? Brown must first get to the courts before they can hear him.
In the Mattox case already cited, the Solicitor General of the Northern Judicial Circuit of Georgia, demanding the return of Mattox to Georgia, objected to the judge presiding over the habeas corpus proceedings on the ground that when that judge (the Honorable and late lamented FENERTY) was a member of Congress he had sponsored anti-lynch legislation. This, the Georgia Solicitor General maintained, disqualified Judge FENERTY from sitting on the case! In refusing the writ, Judge FENERTY wrote a brilliant page in the defense of true civil rights when he said: “In view of
While there has been no such expression of bias on the part of the representative of Georgia who handled this case in our Courts, the actions of the Georgia prison warden and guards who had, and probably will still have, jurisdiction over Edward Brown speak louder than words.
As we would not extradite to a Soviet-dominated country a fugitive for whom, (without benefit of trial,) a Siberian exile, the salt mines, or a firing squad waited, so should we not, on the appalling record of brutality in this case, extradite even to a sister State an American citizen who has suffered the treatment which one of our Courts has already judicially heard and judicially appraised as inhuman.
. . .
Edward Brown is entitled to due process of law. In Moore v. Dempsey, 261 U.S. 86, 90 (1923), Justice OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES speaking for the Court said: “It was recognized of course that if in fact a trial is dominated by a mob so that there is an actual interference with the course of justice, there is a departure from due process of law; and that if the State, supplying no corrective process, carries into execution a judgment of death or imprisonment based upon a verdict thus produced by mob domination, the State deprives the accused of his life or liberty without due process of law.” Whether due process of law is prevented by the intervention of a mob or by thugs masquerading in the name of the law, the result is the same: due process is paralyzed.
The Majority Opinion, commenting on the lower court‘s declaration that the prisoner if returned to the custody of Georgia would be subjected to the same cruel
This observation by the Majority Opinion almost approaches naivete’ because most of the savage and barbarous cruelties inflicted upon Edward Brown occurred after the amendment to the
In its apparent desire not to believe that such brutal and savage treatment (as was proved in this case) could be inflicted on human beings in America the majority is willing to push aside the record, from the pages of which one can almost hear the moans and groans of the victims of chain gang peonage. The “stretching” barbarity, to which I have already referred, occurred in 1949, four years after the Amended Constitution of humanity went into effect. I will quote a little more from the record on that harrowing episode: “Q. How long did they keep you in this stretcher? A. Just as long as you was breathing. If you blank out, they probably let you out. Q. Did you blank out? A. Yes, sir; I did. Q. Were you in this stretcher only once? A. Twice. Q. When was the first time? A. Right after my sister came to visit me in ‘49. Q. What month in 1949? A. She came on the 5th of July to visit me in ‘49. Within a week after she visited me they had me stretched in there. Q. Why? A. Because I had come
The wrist-hanging incident occurred in 1948.
The revolting “staking” episode occurred in 1949. After the prisoner described an obscenity committed on him by the warden‘s boy, the prisoner testified: “Q. About how old? A. He is 12 years old. Q. At that time? A. At that time he was. Q. That was when? A. That was in 1949. Q. About what month? A. That was in August. Q. August? A. August of 1949. Q. Was it a bright, sunshiny day? A. Yes, sir; it was. Q. Did the sun pour down on you? Were you face up? A. My face up, I was laying flat on my back and my face up. The sun was boiling very hot and the syrup, it was sticky, and they turned the dogs loose on me; they was licking the syrup and biting and growling and doing everything. Q. Biting. A. Yes, they did. Here is a scar across my face here where it left, and one on my nose where the dog scratched and bit me.”
The Majority‘s observation that these things cannot occur to the prisoner upon his return because the Constitution and the laws forbid it, is like the young lawyer telling his client through the bars of a prison cell: “They can‘t put you in jail for that.”
The Majority Opinion also places a great deal of confidence in J. B. Hatchett, the Assistant Director of the State Board of Corrections of the State of Georgia, and states that Hatchett has given assurances “that if the relator were returned he would not be subjected to any cruel or unusual punishment whatever.” Why? Hatchett‘s testimony was heard by the lower court and it was evaluated with all the other testimony. And after such evaluation, the court solemnly proclaimed, in spite of Hatchett‘s assurances, that
This same Assistant Director of the State Board of Corrections testified: “I visit each prison camp in the State at least once a year. There may be some I wouldn‘t get to.” What would be happening to Brown if he was in a prison camp that Hatchett “wouldn‘t get to.” And what could be happening to Brown during the many months in the year when Hatchett was not around, assuming that Hatchett would eventually get around once a year to that camp?
Hatchett testified that the riveting of picks had been “prohibited” in 1946, but several witnesses testified that prisoners were wearing picks during 1947, 1948, 1949, 1950 and 1951, and scarred ridges around former prisoners’ ankles were exhibited to the court below.
On April 13, 1953, Hatchett‘s immediate superior, R. E. Warren, Director of State Board of Corrections of Georgia, sent a rather revealing letter to all the wardens in the State. Two significant paragraphs are quoted: “Since April of last year the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the Savannah office has been conducting an investigation as to alleged mistreatment of prisoners in one of our institutions. . . We have incurred the wrath of the Department of Justice in Washington and they are working through the Federal Bureau of Investigation to embarrass us in every way they can and we want to keep our house in order so they will have no grounds or reasons for conducting the unfair investigation as they have in the incident in Savannah.”
. . .
The Majority‘s apparent conclusion that chain gangs are a thing of the past in Georgia can only come from some knowledge not contained in the record, the
The Majority Opinion cites three decisions of this Court in support of its position. It begins with the case of Com. ex rel. Henderson v. Baldi, 372 Pa. 463, 466 (1953). That case, in my opinion, is where the trouble started. Mr. Justice JONES, speaking for the Court, said that: “Under the
I do not find anything in the
Mr. Justice JONES speaking for the Court, said further in the Henderson case that: “All that the present appellant avers in support of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus is that, if he is returned to Georgia, he will be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. He does not in any way impeach the extradition proceedings nor has he controverted a single one of the facts upon which the requisition papers are based.”
Mr. Justice JONES apparently treated the petitioner‘s claim very lightly when he said that all that the petitioner claimed was that if returned to Georgia he would be subjected to cruel and unusual punishment. Was that a minor complaint? Was that insignificant? Is it nothing if a petitioner claims, as he does in the case at bar, that if returned to Georgia he will be shackled, beaten, broiled, stretched and thrown to snakes and drowning waters? Is that not something properly to complain about in a court of justice?
All that the petitioner complained about in the case of Com. ex rel. Mattox v. Supt. of County Prison, supra, was that if returned to Georgia he would be lynched. And on that complaint, which was proved to have factual support, the Superior Court bravely and legally released Mattox, even though he did not controvert a “single one of the facts upon which the requisition papers” were based.
“Whether he ought to be surrendered” obviously imports that if there is any circumstances which, in law, morals, decency and justice, argues effectively against extradition, the extradition is to be denied. Thus, there is more than the technical adequacy of the extradition proceedings to be considered. There is the life of a citizen to be considered. The Mattox case, as already stated, did not stop at a mere scanning of the extradition papers. The Superior Court wanted to know what was to happen if Mattox was returned to Georgia, and when it ascertained that he would likely be lynched upon return to the demanding State, it refused the extradition. The Majority Opinion here does not repudiate that decision and, unless and until it does, this present adjudication must stand out, in my opinion, as a denial of due process.
If, in a given case, the facts should reveal that a lynching party is waiting for the prisoner at the State
It is my firm conviction that under the provisions of the
In the case of Commonwealth v. Onda, 376 Pa. 405 (1954), Andrew Onda, who was convicted in the Court of Oyer and Terminer of Allegheny County of violation of the
It seems to me that when we realize the unbudgeable fact that the year 1722 in point of chronology, law jurisprudence, allegiance and loyalty, precedes 1776, this Court can not claim a power which was held by a Court beholden to the British Crown. The Declaration of Independence severed all ties with the British Empire. This Court, as I view it, has only those powers which are granted by the
However, since the law of Pennsylvania is what the Supreme Court says it is, unless changed by Constitutional amendment or Act of Assembly, the Supreme Court does now possess powers equivalent to those once exercised by the Court of King‘s Bench. What are those powers? They were defined by Sir William Blackstone in Book 3, ch. 4 p. 42: “The jurisdiction of this court [Court of King‘s Bench] is very high and transcendent. It keeps all inferior jurisdictions within the bounds of their authority, and may either remove their proceedings to be determined here, or prohibit their progress below . . . It protects the liberty of the subject, by speedy and summary interposition.”
Since the Supreme Court does, therefore, possess limitless power to protect “the liberty of the subject” and to see that justice is done, why does it not draw on that power in this case?
This Court in the Onda case commented upon the “emotional shock” Onda would suffer upon “being sentenced to court to the term in prison to which defendant would undoubtedly have been subject.”
It appears to me that Edward Brown will suffer more than an “emotional shock” when he is returned to the stretching, broiling, wrist-hanging, beating and chained rigors which probably await him in Georgia, as pointed out in the court below.
If this Court can use the limitless powers of the King‘s Bench to save a convicted Communist revolutionary from the sentence he deserves, why can it not use that power to save the wretch in this case who, according to sworn evidence, is being doomed to a
Sterling v. Philadelphia, Appellant.