Atrocious Judges : Lives of Judges Infamous as Tools of Tyrants and Instruments of Oppression

by Baron John Campbell Campbell

It would be futile, and worse, to argue that he who has organized and guided, and headed a mob, to effect the abduction and imprisonment of others—he in whose presence and by whose active influence the abduction and imprisonment have been brought about—might excuse himself from responsibility by the assertion that it was not his hand that made the unlawful assault, or that he never acted as the jailer. He who unites with others to commit a crime, shares with them all the legal liabilities that attend on its commission. He chooses his company and adopts their acts.

This is the retributive law of all concerted crimes; and its argument applies with peculiar force to those cases, in which redress and prevention of wrong are sought through the writ of habeas corpus. This, the great remedial process by which liberty is vindicated and restored, tolerates no language, in the response which it calls for, that can mask a subterfuge. The dearest interests of life, personal safety, domestic peace, social repose, all that man can value, or that is worth living for, are involved in this principle. The institutions of society would lose more than half their value, and courts of justice become impotent for protection, if the writ of habeas corpus could not compel the truth—full, direct, and unequivocal—in answer to its mandate.

It will not do to say to the man, whose wife or whose daughter has been abducted, “I did not abduct her; she is not in my possession; I do not detain her; inasmuch as the assault was made by the hand of my subordinates, and I have forborne to ask where they propose consummating the wrong.”

It is clear, then, as it seems to me, that in legal acceptance the parties whom this writ called on Mr. Williamson to produce, were at one time within his power and control; and his answer, so far as it relates to his power over them, makes no distinction between that time and the present. I cannot give a different interpretation to his language from that which he has practically given himself, and cannot regard him as denying his power over the prisoners now, when he does not aver that he has lost the power which he formerly had.

He has thus refused, or at least he has failed, to answer to the command of the law. He has chosen to decide for himself upon the lawfulness as well as the moral propriety of his act, and to withhold the ascertainment and vindication of the rights of others from that same forum of arbitrament on which all his own rights repose. In a word, he has put himself in contempt of the process of this court and challenges its action.

That action can have no alternative form. It is one too clearly defined by ancient and honored precedent, too indispensable to the administration of social justice and the protection of human right, and too potentially invoked by the special exigency of the case now before the court, to excuse even a doubt of my duty or an apology for its immediate performance.

The cause was submitted to me by the learned counsel for the respondent, without argument, and I have therefore found myself at some loss to understand the grounds on which, if there be any such, they would claim the discharge of their client. One only has occurred to me as, perhaps, within his view; and on this I think it right to express my opinion. I will frankly reconsider it, however, if any future aspect of the case shall invite the review.

It is this: that the persons named in this writ as detained by the respondent, were not legally slaves, inasmuch as they were within the territory of Pennsylvania when they were abducted.

Waiving the inquiry whether, for the purpose of this question, they were within the territorial jurisdiction of Pennsylvania while passing from one state to another upon the navigable waters of the United States—a point on which my first impressions are adverse to the argument—I have to say:

I. That I know of no statute, either of the United States, or of Pennsylvania, or of New Jersey, the only other state that has a qualified jurisdiction over this part of the Delaware, that authorises the forcible abduction of any person or any thing whatsoever, without claim of property, unless in aid of legal process.