Commonwealth v. Superintendent of Philadelphia County Prison

Citations

• 220 Pa. 401
• 69 A. 916
• 1908 Pa. LEXIS 793

Syllabus

<p>Extradition — Constitutional law — Sufficiency of warrant — Character of the offense.</p> <p>Under the act of congress of February 12, 1793, Rev. Stat. 1022, passed in furtherance of sec. 2, art. IV, of the constitution of the United States, relating to extraditions, it is requisite that a demand for the fugitive from justice be made by the executive authority of the state or territory from which he fled; that this be accompanied by an indictment found, or an affidavit made before a magistrate charging the fugitive with having committed a crime against the law of the state or territory; and that the copy of the indictment or affidavit be certified as authentic by the chief executive of the state or territory from which such person fled. The court must also find that the accused is in fact a fugitive from justice.</p> <p>If the jurisdictional facts authorizing the extradition of the accused appear from the papers, the court on a hearing in habeas corpus proceedings will not go into the merits of the case, nor determine the guilt or innocence of the accused; nor will the court consider evidence to the effect that the criminal proceedings were instituted in the demanding state with bad motives.</p> <p>It is the province of the courts of the state where the crime was committed to declare what its laws are and to determine whether particular acts on the part of an alleged offender constitute a crime under such laws.</p> <p>Appeals — Records—Evidence—Extradition proceedings — Bill of Exceptions.</p> <p>An appeal from an order in extradition proceedings takes up only the record, and not the evidence. The fact that the judge of the quarter sessions granted a bill of exceptions, is immaterial, since it is based on no statutory authority.</p>