In re Manchester

Citations

• 5 Cal. 237
• 1855 Cal. LEXIS 91

Syllabus

<p>The Judiciary have jurisdiction by habeas corpus to investigate cases where a party is arrested as a fugitive from justice, escaped from another State.</p> <p>The Courts possess no power to control the Executive discretion in surrendering fugitives from justice ; nor can they compel a surrender in such case; yet the Executive having acted, that discretion may be examined into, in every case where the liberty of the subject is involved.</p> <p>It is not necesary that the affidavit upon which the requisition issued should set forth the crime charged, with all the legal exactness necessary to be observed in an indictment. If it distinctly charge the commission of an offense, it is all that is necessary.</p> <p>The Governor of the State issuing the requisition for the fugitive, is the only proper judge of the authenticity of the affidavit; and the Judge, on habeas corpus, can not go behind his action to iuquire whether the affidavit ivas a forgery.</p> <p>It is not necessary that the affidavit should state that the prisoner is a “fugitive from justice”—the allegation that he committed the crime, and then secretly fled, is sufficient to deduce the conclusion, that he is a fugitive from justice.</p> <p>When the requisition certifies that the affidavit is “ duly authenticated according to the laws” of said State, it is sufficient.</p>