72 N.Y.S. 1 | N.Y. Sup. Ct. | 1901
The defendants, principal and surety on a bail bond given at the Eighteenth Precinct Police Station House, claim that because it recites that the principal is held to answer the complaint of “ Sus. Person ” (an offense unknown to the law), the bond is void, and hence a judgment entered on a forfeiture thereof and an execution to collect the same must be vacated on their applicatibn. The claim is based on the argument that the principal was in custody upon a charge of what under the law was no offense at all, and that the arrest and detention were not only wrongful, but the whole proceeding void ah origine. That the abbreviated term used indicates no offense in law is not so plain. Where there is reasonable cause to believe that a person has committed a felony he may be arrested without a warrant. Code Crim. Pro., § 177. Yet the belief is generally nothing more than a well-grounded suspicion. Such a person is, therefore, regarded in police parlance as a “ suspicious person,” the designation aptly denoting the offense. The condition of the bond was not only to produce the prisoner before the magistrate on the following day, but he was to there “ remain to answer, subject to any order of the magistrate and render himself in execution thereof.” The complainant appeared in court on August twentieth, the day specified in the bond, and charged the prisoner with extortion, a crime which may be either felony or misdemeanor, according to circumstances. Penal Code, §§ 552, 557. If the defendant had been in actual custody the proper officer would have produced him to answer this charge, and the object of the bail bond is to put the
Motion denied, with ten dollars costs.