Boske v. Comingore

Citations

• 177 U.S. 459
• 20 S. Ct. 701
• 44 L. Ed. 846
• 1900 U.S. LEXIS 1815

Syllabus

<p>A United States Collector of Internal Revenue was adjudged by a court of limited-jurisdiction in Kentucky to be in contempt because he refused, while giving his deposition in a case pending in the state court, to file copies’ of certain reports made by distillers, and which reports were in his custody as a subordinate officer of the Treasury Department. He based his refusal upon a regulation of that Department which provided:’ “ All records in the offices of collectors of internal revenue or of any Of their deputies are in their custody and control for purposes relating to the collection of the revenues of the United States only. They have no control of them and no discretion with regard to permitting the use of them for any other purpose.” This regulation was made by the Secretary of the Treasury under the authority conferred upon him by section 161 of the Revised Statutes of the United States, which authorized that officer, as the head of an Executive Department of the Government, “ to prescribe regulations, not inconsistent with law, for the government of his department, the conduct of its officers and clerks, the distribution and performance of its business, and the custody, use and preservation of the records, papers and property appertaining to it.” The Collector having been arrested - under the order of the state authorities, sued out a writ of habeas ■corpus before the District Court of the United States for the Kentucky District. Held:</p> <p>(1) That the case was properly brought directly from the District Court to this court as one involving the construction or application of the Constitution of the United States.</p> <p>(2) As the petitioner was an officer in the revenue service of the United States whose presence at his post of duty was important to the' public interests, and whose detention in prison by the state authorities might have interfered with the regular and orderly course of the business of the Department to which he belonged, it was prope