Rogers v. Desportes

268 F. 83, 1920 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 865
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. South Carolina
DecidedJuly 31, 1920
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 268 F. 83 (Rogers v. Desportes) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. South Carolina primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Rogers v. Desportes, 268 F. 83, 1920 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 865 (southcarolinaed 1920).

Opinion

SMITH,-District Judge.

This is an application for a writ of habeas corpus to discharge the petitioners from further confinement. The facts appear to be as follows:

On the 22d day of January, 1920, the above-named petitioners were convicted in the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of South Carolina, after a trial in which they were represented by counsel, of the violation of sections 3258, 3281, and 3279 of the United States Revised Statutes (Comp. St. §§ 5994, 6021, 6019). Thereupon they were sentenced by the court to each pay a fine of $500, with the costs of prosecution, and be each confined for one year in the United States penitentiary at Atlanta. No application of any kind was made for a writ of error to the judgment and the sentence thereon. On the 2d day of February, 1920, the petitioners were by the United States marshal for the Eastern district of South Carolina transported to the United States penitentiary at Atlanta, and there committed to perform their sentences.

Subsequently a writ of habeas corpus was sued out on behalf' of these petitioners before Hon. Samuel H. Sibley, the judge of the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Georgia, who, on the 9th of June, 1920, adjudged that a sentence for one year, not at hard labor, cannot be executed in a federal penitentiary, and that the detention of the petitioners in the United States penitentiary at Atlanta was unlawful, and further, on the 2d of July, 1920, ordered the United States marshal for the Northern district of Georgia to transport the petitioners to Columbia, S. C., and there deliver them to the United States marshal for the Eastern district of South Carolina, to the end that such correction as may be lawful may be made in the sentence imposed upon them. In pursuance of this order, the United States marshal for the Northern district of Georgia transported the petitioners to Columbia, S. C., and there committed them to the custody of the jailer of the county jail for Richland county, where they now are.

This application is now made for a writ of habeas corpus to obtain their release, upon the hypothesis that, the original sentence having been adjudged by Judge Sibley to be void, it follows that any detention of the prisoners is unlawful.

[ 1 ] The first question for consideration is as to the effect of Judge Sibley’s order as an adjudication binding on the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of South Carolina. Judge Sibley is the District Judge of the United States for the Northern District of Georgia. The United States penitentiary at Atlanta is situated in the Northern district of Georgia. The bodies of these prisoners being within the territorial jurisdiction of the District Court for the Northern Dis-' trict of Georgia, an application for a release under a writ of habeas corpus would naturally lie to the judge of that court; he having physical jurisdiction of the persons both of the party detained and his custodian. On the hearing of that application, however, he has no jurisdiction or power beyond that possessed by any other court of primary jurisdiction of powers and jurisdiction similar to his own. He has no right or power to sit ,as a court of appeal to correct the errors of any other court or judge of equal primary jurisdiction.

[85]*85The District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina is a court, of similar jurisdiction and powers in all respects with that of the District Court for the Northern District of Georgia. The tribunals of an appellate character for the correction of errors in the District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina are the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and the Supreme Court of the United States. In all cases whereof the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of South Carolina possessed jurisdiction of the persons and the subject-matter, its decrees, judgments, and sentences in the'cause are absolute and binding upon all other courts, save only the appellate tribunals empowered by law to correct its errors. In the present case, the District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina undoubtedly originally possessed jurisdiction of the persons of the petitioners and of the subject-matter of the indictments under which they were tried. Upon conviction of the defendants under those indictments, it pronounced judgment and sentence as upon consideration it found proper under the law of the case. To this judgment and sentence no exception was made or writ of error taken.

Upon hearing the application for habeas corpus before him, the judge of the District Court of the United States for the Northern District of Georgia came to the conclusion that the judge of the District Court for the Eastern District of South Carolina had committed an error in the judgment and sentence in these cases, and thereupon ordered the prisoners to be transported back to the Eastern district of South Carolina for the District Court of that district to correct its judgment and sentence, so as to conform to the opinion of the judge of the District Court for the Northern District of Georgia.

In so doing, the learned judge for the Northern district of Georgia apparently followed the practice indicated in the case of Bryant v. United States, 214 Fed. 51, 130 C. C. A. 491. There a defendant was convicted in the District Court for the District of Oklahoma of a violation of section 5392, U. S. R. S. (Comp. St. §■ 10295). That section provided as the punishment for perjury a penalty of not more than $2,000 and imprisonment at hard labor for not more than five years. This section was repealed by section 341 of the Criminal Code (Comp. St. §1 10515), enacted March 4, 1909, and section 125 of the Criminal Code substituted, (section 10295), whereby the penalty was not more than $2,000 and imprisonment for not more than five years; the provision for hard labor being omitted. The District Judge for the District of Oklahoma sentenced the convicted prisoner to confinement in the penitentiary at Ft. Leavenworth, in the district of Kansas, for one year. He was later taken before the District Court of the United States for the District of Kansas, which ordered him released from the custody of the warden of the penitentiary, on the ground that the sentence was void, and to be delivered to the court in Oklahoma for the judgment of that court.

The District Judge of the court in Oklahoma seems to have admitted he was in error in his sentence and resentenced the prisoner. Apparently the ground on which the sentence was adjudged void was that it did not indicate the requirement of hard labor, and presumably, [86]*86therefore, the prisoner was convicted of a crime committed under the section as it stood before its amendment in 1909. The Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit, on appeal in habeas corpus, held the resentence valid. The courts in this case seem to have acted upon the assumption that one District Court of the United States has the authority on habeas corpus to supervise the action of another District Court of like authority, and, if it found its judgment erroneous, to send the prisoner back to have the trial court correct its judgment to conform to the views of the District Judge who heard the habeas corpus, thus undertaking to act as a court for the correction of the error of another court.

This position appears manifestly unsustainable.

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Bluebook (online)
268 F. 83, 1920 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 865, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/rogers-v-desportes-southcarolinaed-1920.