Page:Harvard Law Review Volume 12.djvu/561

INTERSTATE CRIME AND EXTRADITION. 54 1 until such a provision be made, State law from very necessity will continue to cut an important figure. It is well settled that the courts, State as well as Federal, have jurisdiction on Habeas Corpus to review the action of the governor surrendering a person for extradition to the agent of a demanding State. And in so doing State courts should administer Federal law primar'^* ad- ministering State law only in so far as it aids in the effectuation of the spirit of the Federal law. An interesting case was passed upon at a Special Term of the Supreme Court in New York City in 1895, in which one of the ablest and most conscientious of the New York judges was in my judgment led into heterodoxy through the assumption that his power was limited by the narrow terms of a State statute.^ Section 827 of the New York Code of Civil Pro- cedure attempts to regulate the procedure upon Habeas Corpus in interstate extradition proceedings, and, as the learned judge points out, '* according to the letter of the statute, at least, the only ques- tion which the court can determine is the question of the identity of the prisoner with the person against whom the charge has been made, or with the person named in the warrant of the governor." Accordingly, identity being clear, the writ was dismissed as to two persons, and their extradition to Massachusetts ratified, although it was made to appear presumptively that they had not been within that State at the time of the commission of the crime. Certain coupon bonds had been stolen in Massachusetts, and, although the relators who resided in New York City were shortly thereafter in possession of a part of the property, they claimed they had received it there from a woman called " Maggie " and undertook to dispose of it on her account. Very probably the relators had guilty knowledge, but the facts recited in the opinion make it even more probable that they had not been in Mas- sachusetts. However this may be, the court declined to pass upon that question as immaterial. The following is from the opinion : — "It would also seem that it must appear upon the papers that the prisoner is a fugitive from justice, in the sense that he was either present in the State at the time of the commission of the offence charged, or that the crime alleged is of such a character as necessarily to imply the pres- ence of the prisoner within the State at the time it was committed. This excludes a certain class of crimes which may be committed by persons 1 People ex rel. Ryan v. Conlin, 15 Misc. 303.