TAYLOR v. TAINTOR
Supreme Court of the United States
December Term, 1872
Jurisdiction is authority to hear and determine. It is an axiomatic proposition that when jurisdiction has attached, whatever errors may subsequently occur in its exercise, the proceeding being coram judice, can be impeached collaterally only for fraud. In all other respects it is as conclusive as if it were irreversible in a proceeding for error. The order of sale before us is within this rule. Grignon‘s Lessee v. Astor et al.* was, like this, a case of a sale by an administrator. In that case this court said: “The purchaser under it is not bound to look beyond the decree. If there is error in it. of the most palpable kind, if the court which rendered it have, in the exercise of jurisdiction, disregarded, misconstrued, or disobeyed the plain provisions of the law which gave them the power to hear and determine the case before them, the title of the purchaser is as much protected as if the adjudication would stand the test of a writ of error; and so where an appeal is given, but not taken, in the time allowed by law.” This case and the case of Voorhees v. The Bank of the United States† are the leading authorities in this court upon the subject. Other and later cases have followed and been controlled by them. Stow v. Kimball‡ affirms the same doctrine.
JUDGMENT AFFIRMED.
TAYLOR v. TAINTOR, TREASURER.
- When the bail of a party arrested by order of a State court of one State on information for a crime, and released from custody under his own and his bail‘s recognizance that he will appear at a day fixed and abide the order and judgment of the court on process from which he has been arrested, have suffered him to go into another State, and while there he is, after the forfeiture of the recognizance, delivered up (under the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution and the act of February 12th, 1793, passed to give effect to it) on the requisition of the governor of a third State for a crime committed (without the knowledge of the bail) in it, and is tried, convicted, and imprisoned in such third State, the bail are not discharged from liability on their recogni-
zance on suit by the State where the person was first arrested. There has been no such “act of the law” in the case as will discharge bail. The law which renders the performance impossible, and therefore excuses failure, must be a law operative in the State where the obligation was assumed, and obligatory in its effect upon her authorities. - The fact that there has been placed in the hands of the bail, by some one, not the person arrested nor any one in his behalf, nor so far as the bail knew, with his knowledge, a sum of money equivalent to that for which the bail and himself were bound, has no effect, in a suit against the bail, on the rights of the parties.
IN error to the Supreme Court of Errors of the State of Connecticut; in which court William Taylor, Barnabas Allen, and one Edward McGuire were plaintiffs in error, and Taintor, Treasurer of the State of Connecticut, was defendant in error. The case arose under that clause of the Federal Constitution* which ordains that
“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,”
and under the act of Congress passed February 12th, 1793, to carry into effect this provision, and which makes it the duty of the executive of the State or Territory to which a person charged with one of the crimes mentioned has fled, upon proper demand to cause the fugitive to be arrested and delivered up.
Mr. M. W. Seymour, for the plaintiff in error; Messrs. S. B. Beardsley and N. L. White, contra.
Mr. Justice SWAYNE stated the facts of the case and delivered the opinion of the court.
This is a writ of error, issued under the 25th section of the Judiciary Act of 1789, to the Supreme Court of Errors of the State of Connecticut.
The attorney of the State for the county of Fairfield pre-
This suit was thereupon instituted in the Superior Court of Fairfield County to recover the amount of the obligation. The facts developed at the trial, and relied upon by the defendants to defeat the action were, according to the practice in that State, found and certified by the court, and became a part of the record. So far as it is necessary to state them, they are as follows:
After the recognizance was entered into McGuire went into the State of New York, where he belonged. While there, upon a requisition from the governor of Maine upon the governor of New York, he was seized by the legal officers of New York, and was by them forthwith, on the 19th of October, 1866, delivered over to the proper officers of the State of Maine, by whom he was immediately and against his will removed to that State. The requisition charged a burglary alleged to have been committed by McGuire in Maine before the recognizance in question in this case was taken. At the time of the forfeiture of the recognizance McGuire was, and he has been ever since, legally imprisoned in Maine. In June, 1867, he was tried there for the burglary charged in the requisition, and convicted and sentenced to confinement in the penitentiary for fifteen years,
The Superior Court gave judgment for the plaintiff. The defendants thereupon removed the case to the Supreme Court of Errors for Fairfield County. That court affirmed the judgment, and the defendants thereupon brought this writ of error.
The fact that the sureties were indemnified was proper to be considered by the Superior Court upon an application for time to produce the body of McGuire.* But it could have no effect upon the rights of the parties in this action, and may therefore be laid out of view.
It is the settled law of this class of cases that the bail will be exonerated where the performance of the condition is rendered impossible by the act of God, the act of the obligee, or the act of the law.† Where the principal dies before the day of performance, the case is within the first category. Where the court before which the principal is bound to appear is abolished without qualification, the case is within the second. If the principal is arrested in the State where the obligation is given and sent out of the State by the governor, upon the requisition of the governor
It is equally well settled that if the impossibility be created by the obligor or a stranger, the rights of the obligee will be in nowise affected.‡ And there is “a distinction between the act of the law proper and the act of the obligor, which exposes him to the control and action of the law.“§ While the former exonerates, the latter gives no immunity. It is the willing act of the obligor which creates the obstacle, and the legal effect is the same as of any other act of his, which puts performance out of his power. This applies only where the accused has been convicted and sentenced. Before judgment—non constat—but that he may be innocent.
Where a State court and a court of the United States may each take jurisdiction, the tribunal which first gets it holds it to the exclusion of the other, until its duty is fully performed and the jurisdiction invoked is exhausted: and this rule applies alike in both civil and criminal cases.|| It is indeed a principle of universal jurisprudence that where jurisdiction has attached to person or thing, it is—unless there is some provision to the contrary—exclusive in effect until it has wrought its function.
Where a demand is properly made by the governor of one
The law which renders the performance impossible, and therefore excuses failure, must be a law operative in the State where the obligation was assumed, and obligatory in its effect upon her authorities. If, after the instrument is executed, the principal is imprisoned in another State for the violation of a criminal law of that State, it will not avail to protect him or his sureties. Such is now the settled rule.*
When bail is given, the principal is regarded as delivered to the custody of his sureties. Their dominion is a continuance of the original imprisonment. Whenever they choose to do so, they may seize him and deliver him up in their discharge; and if that cannot be done at once, they may imprison him until it can be done. They may exercise their rights in person or by agent. They may pursue him into another State; may arrest him on the Sabbath; and, if necessary, may break and enter his house for that purpose. The seizure is not made by virtue of new process. None is needed. It is likened to the rearrest by the sheriff of an escaping prisoner.† In 6 Modern‡ it is said: “The bail
In the case of Devine v. The State,‡ the court, speaking of the principal, say, “The sureties had the control of his person; they were bound at their peril to keep him within their jurisdiction, and to have his person ready to surrender when demanded. . . . In the case before us, the failure of the sureties to surrender their principal, was, in the view of the law, the result of their own negligence or connivance, in suffering their principal to go beyond the jurisdiction of the court and from under their control.” The other authorities cited are to the same effect.
The plaintiffs in error were not entitled to be exonerated for several reasons:
When the recognizance was forfeited for the non-appearance of McGuire, the action of the governor of New York, pursuant to the requisition of the governor of Maine, had spent its force and had come to an end. McGuire was then held in custody under the law of Maine to answer to a criminal charge pending there against him. This, as already stated, cannot avail the plaintiffs in error. The shortness of the time that intervened between the arrest in New York and the imprisonment in Maine on the one hand, and the failure and forfeiture in Connecticut on the other, are entirely immaterial. Whether the time were longer or shorter—one year or one day—the legal principle involved is the same, and the legal result must be the same.
If McGuire had remained in Connecticut he would proba-
We have shown that when McGuire was arrested in New York the original imprisonment, under the information in Connecticut, was continued; that the bail had a right to seize him wherever they could find him; that the prosecution in Connecticut was still pending, and that the Superior Court having acquired jurisdiction, it could, neither be arrested nor suspended in invitum by any other tribunal. Though beyond the jurisdiction of Connecticut, he was still through his bail in the hands of the law of that State, and held to answer there for the offence with which he was charged. Had the facts been made known to the executive of New York by the sureties at the proper time, it is to be presumed he would have ordered McGuire to be delivered to them and not to the authorities of Maine. The result is due, not to the Constitution and law of the United States, but to their own supineness and neglect. Under the circumstances they can have no standing in court to maintain this objection.
The act of the governor of New York, in making the surrender, was not “the act of the law” within the legal meaning of those terms; but in the view of the law was the act of McGuire himself. He violated the law of Maine, and thus put in motion the machinery provided to bring
The act of the governor of New York was the act of a stranger.
It is true that the constitutional provision and the law of Congress, under which the arrest and delivery were made, are obligatory upon every State and a part of the law of every State. But the duty enjoined is several and not joint; and every governor acts separately and independently for himself. There can be no joint demand and no joint neglect or refusal. In the event of refusal, the State making the demand must submit. There is no alternative. In the case of McGuire no impediment appeared to the governor of New York, and he properly yielded obedience. The governor of Connecticut, if applied to, might have rightfully postponed compliance. If advised in season he might have intervened and by a requisition have asserted the claim of Connecticut. It would then have been for the governor of New York to decide between the conflicting demands. Whatever the decision—if the proceedings were regular—it would have been conclusive. There could have been no review and no inquiry going behind it.* We cannot hold
A different doctrine would be fraught with mischief. It could hardly fail, by fraud and connivance, to lead frequently to abuses, involving the escape of offenders of a high grade, with pecuniary immunity to themselves and their sureties. Every violation of the criminal laws of a State is within the meaning of the Constitution, and may be made the foundation of a requisition.* Hence the facility of escape if this instrumentality could be used to effect that object. The rule we have announced guards against such results.
The supposed analogy between a surrender under a treaty providing for extradition and the surrender here in question has been earnestly pressed upon our attention. There, the act is done by the authorities of the nation—in behalf of the nation—pursuant to a National obligation. That obligation rests alike upon the people of all the States. A National exigency might require prompt affirmative action. In making the order of surrender, all the States, through their constituted agent, the General Government, are represented and concur, and it may well be said to be the act of each and all of them. Not so here.
The judgment of the Supreme Court of Errors of Connecticut is
AFFIRMED.
Mr. Justice DAVIS and Mr. Justice HUNT did not sit.
Mr. Justice FIELD (with whom concurred Mr. Justice CLIFFORD and Mr. Justice MILLER), dissenting.
I am unable to concur in the judgment rendered by the majority of the court in this case. I agree with them that sure-
The Constitution of the United States declares its own supremacy, and that of the laws made in pursuance of it, and of treaties contracted under the authority of the United States. As the supreme law of the land they are, of course, to be enforced and obeyed, however much they may interfere with the law or constitution of any State.
Now the Constitution provides that “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 tlie State from which he fled, be delivered up to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime.“* The act of Congress of February 12th, 1793, was passed to carry into effect this provision, and has made it the duty of the executive of the State or Territory to which a person charged with one of the crimes mentioned has fled, upon proper demand to cause the fugitive to be arrested and delivered up. In pursuance of this act the principal on the recognizance in suit was arrested by order of the governor of New York, and delivered up as a fugitive from justice to the officers of the State of Maine. By them he was taken to that State, and having been previously indicted for a felony, was there tried, convicted, and sentenced to the penitentiary for fifteen years. Thus in the
The case is not essentially different from a surrender of a fugitive from justice under an extradition treaty. The United States have such treaties with several European nations, and whatever may have been the extravagant doctrines respecting the rights of the States, at one time in some parts of the country, it will not now be pretended that with the enforcement of such treaties any State, by her laws or judicial proceedings, can interfere. If the fugitive, after his arrival in this country, should commit a crime and be held to bail, it would be a question with the authorities of the General Government whether he should be surrendered under the treaty; but if surrendered it would be manifestly unjust to the bail to hold them to the performance of the conditions of the recognizance.
It seems to me that it would be a more just rule to hold, that whenever sureties on a recognizance are rendered unable to surrender their principal, because he has been taken from, their custody without their assent, in the regular execution of a law or treaty of the United States, their inability thus created should constitute for their default a good and sufficient excuse. The execution of the laws and treaties of the United States should never be allowed in the courts of the United States to work oppression to any one.
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