191 Ind. 444 | Ind. | 1922
Appellee brought an action of habeas corpus against appellant in the superior court of Allen county, and appellant made a return which was adjudged insufficient, whereupon appellee was discharged. The sufficiency of the return is the only question presented for decision. The return stated, in substance, that a verified complaint for an injunction and a restraining order was filed in which appellee and others were named as defendants, together with a surety company bond, and that a summons to appellee was duly issued, and was served on him by the sheriff, and due return was made; that at the same time when he served the summons, the sheriff served on appellee a restraining order forbidding him and others to do the acts sought to be enjoined, by delivering to appellee a copy of the order; that such order had been signed by the judge of the circuit court as such judge; that a few days after service of the summons and of a copy of the
It clearly appears from the return that after the complaint for an injunction and a bond had been filed, a summons for appellee and a copy of an injunction order which had been signed by the judge were served on appellee, and that he was afterward charged by affidavit with doing certain acts forbidden by that order, and
But appellee objects to the return for each of several reasons as follows: (a) That the restraining order was dated on the day the complaint was filed, and the return states that it was signed on that day, but the summons was not issued until the next day; (b) that the return does not show the copy of the restraining order served on appellee to have been certified; (c) that it does not show the order to have been signed on the order book of the court, while the petition expressly alleges that the order book had not been signed when the order was disobeyed; (d) that the order of attachment commanded appellee’s appearance in court “on the first day of the next term thereof to be held on the 17th day of July,” whereas the next regular term would not begin until the first Monday of September; and it was therefore ambiguous.
In 1677, the Earl of Shaftsbury petitioned for habeas corpus, and return was made that he had been committed by order of the House of Lords “for high contempt committed against this house.”
It was stated in argument that the case was one of. first impression, and though imprisonments for con-tempts had been frequent by one or the other of the Houses of Parliament, no person ever had sought enlarjgement in .the courts until then. Each of the judges delivered an opinion that the court of King’s Bench had no jurisdiction to inquire into a commitment by the House of Lords, during the continuance of the session. Earl of Shaftsbury’s Case (1677), 1 Mod. 144, 156, 157. Two years later, in 1679, the celebrated Habeas Corpus Act was passed. It introduced no new principle, but provided 'that the writ must be issued on proper application in vacation as well as in term, and provided a - remedy against a court or judge that refused to issue it.
“The provisions of the (English) habeas corpus act are subject to exceptions; they are not to apply if it appear to the authority issuing the writ that the prisoner is detained by legal process, order, or warrant out of some court that hath jurisdiction in criminal matters, or by legal warrant for such matters or offenses for which, by the law, the prisoner is not bailable; or if he be committed for treason or felony, plainly expressed in the warrant of commitment, or if he be convict or in execution by legal process, or if he be charged with process in any civil suit. The exceptions will be found straggling along through the act.” Church, Habeas Corpus §28. In 1704, the judges of all the courts of England, except chief Justice Holt of. the King’s Bench, resolved that a person committed by the House of Commons for contempt could not be released on habeas corpus. The three justices who delivered the prevailing opinions on behalf of the eleven stated that it was the first habeas corpus ever brought by a person committed by the House of Commons, that said house was a court, with power to judge of its own privileges, and that another court could not take upon itself to review and set aside the decision of the house that its privileges had been infringed. Regina v. Paty (1704), 2 Raymond (Eng.) 1105, Salk. 503.
In a case which arose in 1771 Lord Chief Justice De Grey gave an opinion (in part) as follows: “I do not find any case where the courts have taken cognizance of such execution, or .of commitments of this kind; there is no precedent of Westminster Hall interfering in such a case. In Sir J. Paston’s case, 13-Rep. there is a case cited from the year-book, where it is held that every court shall determine of the privilege of that court; * * * If the court of Common Pleas should commit
And Mr. Justice Blackstone, concurring in the same case, said (in part): "All courts, by which I mean to include the two houses of parliament, and the courts of Westminster Hall, can have no control in matters of contempt. The,sole adjudication of contempts, and the punishment thereof, in any manner, belongs exclusively, and without interfering to each respective court. Infinite confusion and disorder would follow, if courts could, by writs of habeas corpus, examine and determine the contempts of others, * * * it would occasion the utmost confusion, if every court of this Hall should have power to examine the commitments of the other courts of the Hall, for contempts; so that the judgment and commitment of each respective court, as to contempts, must be final, and without control.” Case of Bras Crosby, Lord Mayor of London (1771), 3 Wilson (Eng.) 188, 199, 200, 204.
A motion to deny the writ of error and quash the writ of habeas corpus was overruled by sixteen negative votes against twelve affirmative votes, and upon an opinion prepared by Senator Clinton, the cause was reversed and remitted to the Supreme Court. Yates v. People (1810), 6 Johns (N. Y.) 337, 496, 522.
The prisoner then brought suit against the chancellor to recover the statutory penalty for having been reimprisoned after he had been discharged on habeas corpus. A demurrer to his complaint was sustained by the Supreme Court (Yates v. Lansing (1810), 5 Johns (N. Y.) 282, 298) and the cause was removed by writ of error to the Court of Appeals, which affirmed the judgment by a vote of thirteen to seven. Senator Platt, who wrote the majority opinion in that case, said: “Since the violent contest between the Court of Chancery and the King’s Bench, in the reign of James I, the English
“Does anybody doubt the jurisdiction of the District Court to punish contempt? Certainly not. All courts have this power, and must necessarily have it; otherwise they could not protect themselves from insult, or enforce obedience to their process. Without it, they would be utterly powerless. The authority to deal with an offender of this class belongs exclusively to the court in which the offense is committed; and no other court, not even the highest, can interfere with its exercise, either by writ of error, mandamus, or habeas corpus.” Williamson’s Case, supra.
To end a controversy which had lasted several years, with varying results, as outlined by the decisions cited above, the legislature of New York enacted a statute, in 1818, which provided “that such person (brought up by habeas corpus) shall be remanded if it shall appear
In 1822, in deciding that a person committed to jail by the circuit court for the District of Columbia for contempt of court in refusing to answer a question on the ground that his answer would tend to criminate him could not be discharged on habeas corpus by the Supreme Court of the United States, Mr. Justice Story reviewed at some length the case of Bras Crosby, Lord Mayor, supra, and said: “So that it is most manifest, from the whole reasoning of the court in this case, that a writ of habeas corpus was not deemed a proper remedy, where a party was committed for a contempt by a court of competent jurisdiction; and that, if granted, the court could not inquire into the sufficiency of the cause of commitment. * * * We are entirely satisfied, to administer the law as we find it, and are all of opinion, that, upon the facts of this case, the motion (for a writ of habeas corpus) ought to be denied.” Ex parte Kearney (1822), 7 Wheat. (20 U. S.) 37, 44 (5 L. Ed. 391).
Also in 1822, the Supreme Court of Indiana, by Mr. Justice Blackford, declared the law as follows: “Had they (the circuit court) considered their officer guilty of such gross malpractice, as to require his being compelled in this summary way to satisfy the judgment, they might, for the contempt, have committed him to prison, or heavily amerced him; and have then refused to discharge him, or remit the fine, until the judgment was satisfied. Rex v. The Sheriff of Middlesex, 1 H. Bl. 543 * * * It is the opinion of this Court, that in these
A great many decisions, in many different common-law jurisdictions, have held that where a party is committed for contempt of court the only question which can be inquired into on habeas corpus is whether the court by which he was committed had jurisdiction of the subject-matter, and whether it had acquired jurisdiction of the party at the time it made the order of commitment, and whether the judgment or order pursuant to which the party is held was within the power of the court to make. 21 Cyc 295, and many cases cited ; 12 R. C. L., Habeas Corpus, §30, pp. 1210, 1211; 11 Ann. Cases 1056, 1057, note.
In 1843, the law on the. subject of habeas corpus was
It follows that when it was made to appear to the superior court that appellee was in the custody of the sheriff under an order of commitment by the circuit court, pursuant to an affidavit filed in that court charging him with wilful disobedience of an injunction issued in a case pending in that court in which he had been ■ served with process as a party, the superior court had no jurisdiction to inquire whether the circuit court ought to have issued the order. Having jurisdiction of the subject-matter and of appellee the circuit court had power to decide all intermediate questions presented to it, and to make an order binding on the appellee, however erroneous it might be, unless and until it should be set aside on proper application in a direct proceeding for that purpose, by the court which made it, or should -be reversed on appeal. And the facts on which the order was based could not be inquired into by a court of co-ordinate jurisdiction, nor collaterally in a different action. Gillespie v. Rump (1904), 163 Ind. 457, 72 N. E. 138; Welty v. Ward (1904), 164 Ind. 457, 73 N. E. 889; Baker v. Krietenstein (1916), 185 Ind. 693, 114 N. E. 445.
The trial court erred in sustaining appellee’s exceptions to the return.
And even if there was' any error in the first part of the order in also suggesting that the next term was “to be held on the 17th day of July, 1919,” the process would still be good as running to the first day of the next term, if the next term commenced after that date. The date of holding the September term being fixed by law, appellee had sufficient notice when it would begin. Morgan v. Woods (1870), 38 Ind. 23; Eastes v. Eastes (1881), 79 Ind. 363; Gallup, Exr., v. Schmidt (1900), 154 Ind. 196, 56 N. E. 443; Town of Knox v. Golding (1910), 46 Ind. App. 634, 639, 91 N. E. 857, 92 N. E. 986.
Therefore we decide nothing as to whether the court lawfully could have ignored an intervening special term, duly called for July 17, and have ordered that appellee should be required to appear on the first Monday of September. That question is not material in this case.
The judgment is reversed, with directions to overrule appellee’s exceptions to the return of appellant to the writ of habeas corpus.