17 Mo. 541 | Mo. | 1853
delivered the opinion of the court.
The petitioner states, that he was indicted for murder, and confined in the jail of Cole county, upon that indictment; that at the November term of the Circuit Court of that county, in the year 1852, there was a trial of the cause; and that after it had continued for twelve days, the cause was committed to the jury, who retired.to consider of their verdict, and after an absence of a few hours returned into court, and announced to the court that they could not agree, and that two of their number were indisposed; that the judge directed the jury to retire for half an hour or an hour, and he would consider whether they should be discharged: that, at the expiration of the period fixed, they came into court, and were discharged by the court, without the consent of the prisoner or of his counsel, and in the prisoner’s absence, as he had been taken back to jail immediately after the jury had first retired from the bar of the
It is the opinion of the court, that the statute regulating proceedings on the writ of habeas corpus, does not require the decision of this question in this case, as it forbids the examination of the merits of an application, in a case where the prisoner is confined under an indictment, or under process issued thereon. The language of the twelfth section of the third article is imperative. “No person imprisoned on an indictment found in any court of competent jurisdiction, or by virtue of any process or commitment to enforce such indict