Opinion
Argued May 27th, 1947.
Decided September 25th, 1947.
1. The hearing conducted by the Attorney-General at the direction of the Governor was a matter of grace. Petitioner had no constitutional right thereto.
2. The requisition for extradition and the rendition being in proper form, it is for the court, in habeas corpus proceedings, to inquire whether the petitioner is the person named in the requisition and rendition, and whether he is a fugitive from justice from the demanding state.
3. The asylum state of a person fleeing the state of his conviction for crime has no right to consider the merits of his trial, but only the question of the obligation to surrender him to the demanding state. The question of his guilt or innocence, or whether his constitutional rights on the trial of the indictments preferred against him in the demanding state were violated cannot be determined in the courts of the asylum state. They are to be determined by the courts of the state where he was tried and, if denied what he conceives to be his constitutional right, he may apply to the United States Supreme Court for the protection of such right. Writ of habeas corpus, denied.
On appeal from a decree of the Court of Chancery in which court the following opinion was filed:
"On January 16th, 1947, on petition of John Colier, an order to show cause was issued why a writ of habeas corpus should not issue to test the validity of extradition proceedings instituted for the return of the petitioner to the State of South Carolina.
"On July 6th, 1945, Colier was arrested in Newark charged with violating the Disorderly Persons Act. He was tried, convicted and sentenced to serve one year in the Essex County Penitentiary. While serving that sentence, a detainer was filed against him, pending his extradition to Greenwood County, South Carolina, from which he had escaped in October, 1938, while serving sentence upon several convictions of crime.
"On May 1st, 1946, the governor of South Carolina, issued his requisition calling upon the governor of this state to surrender and return the petitioner. The petitioner was arraigned on the warrant before Judge Hartshorne in the Court of Common Pleas of Essex. Hearings were held as to whether a proper authentication by the executive authority of South Carolina was affixed to the extradition papers. On the date of the last hearing, June 3d 1946, a proper authentication by the governor of South Carolina, was furnished, bearing the date of May 21st, 1946. The authentication of the governor of South Carolina postdated the original warrant of rendition issued by the governor of this state and the hearing was again adjourned to permit a new warrant of rendition to be issued by the governor of this state.
"Before the new warrant was issued, the governor of this state called upon the attorney-general to investigate the demand and to report to him whether the petitioner ought to be surrendered. R.S. 2:185-12. The attorney-general conducted a hearing to afford the petitioner an opportunity to present reasons why the new warrant should not be issued. The petitioner was possessed of no constitutional right to be heard before the governor and the hearing so conducted by governor of this state was a matter of grace. In re Thompson, 85 N.J. Eq. 221.
"In the hearing before the governor, the petitioner through counsel, claimed that he had been denied the right to counsel and a fair and impartial trial and subjected to cruel treatment in South Carolina. When the hearing was concluded, the governor issued a new warrant of rendition on January 9th, 1947. The petitioner was arraigned on the warrant January 14th, 1947, before Judge Conlon, in the Court of Common Pleas of Essex County, and there given an opportunity to apply for a writ of habeas corpus. The application for such writ is now before the court.
"The requisition and rendition are in proper form. Therefore it is for the court to inquire whether the petitioner is the person named in the requisition and rendition, and whether he is a fugitive from justice from the demanding state. In re Paramore, 95 N.J. Eq. 386; affirmed, 96 N.J. Eq. 397. The petitioner does not deny his identity or the fact that he is a fugitive from justice. He objects to his return to South Carolina upon the ground that he `was tried on a criminal indictment for larceny and housebreaking without the assistance of counsel, and without intentionally and intelligently waiving his civil and constitutional right to the assistance of counsel. * * *' To the requisition are attached four indictments for larceny and housebreaking for which the total sentence imposed in South Carolina was nineteen months.
"The petitioner never applied to the South Carolina courts to have his claim now made that he was deprived of his constitutional right to counsel on the trial of the indictments passed upon. The right to do so is still open to him, and in the event of such application to the courts of that state if his efforts should prove fruitless, he still has open to him the right to apply to the United States Supreme Court for its protection of his constitutional right.
"It is the law that the asylum state of a person fleeing the state of his conviction for crime has no right to consider the merits of his trial, but only the question as to the obligation of the asylum state to surrender the person to the state from which he fled. The question of guilt or innocence, or whether there was a violation of petitioner's constitutional right on the trial of the indictments preferred against him in South Carolina, cannot be determined by this court. They are to be determined by the courts of the state in which he was tried, and, if denied what he conceives to be his constitutional right, he may apply to the United States Supreme Court for the protection of such right. Powell v. Meyer, 23 N.J. Mis. R. 222; Powell v. Meyer, 134 N.J. Law 169; Powell v. Meyer ( Circuit Court of Appeals), 147 Fed. Rep. 2d 606; Robichaud v. Brennan, 134 N.J. Law 532; In re Cotton, 24 N.J. Mis. R. 267.
"The order to show cause is discharged and the application for the writ of habeas corpus denied."
Mr. Abraham A. Golden, for the appellant.
Mr. Walter D. Van Riper and Mr. Duane E. Minard, Jr., for the respondent.
The decree appealed from is affirmed, for the reasons stated in the opinion filed in the Court of Chancery.
For affirmance — THE CHIEF-JUSTICE, BODINE, DONGES, HEHER, COLIE, WACHENFELD, EASTWOOD, BURLING, WELLS, DILL, FREUND, McGEEHAN, McLEAN, JJ. 13.
For reversal — None.