Personal reminiscences of early days in California, with other sketches

by Stephen J. Field; George C. Gorham

I am, as always,
Your faithful friend,
J. PROCTOR KNOTT.

Hon. S.J. FIELD,
Associate Justice Supreme Court U.S.

Letter from Hon. William D. Shipman, formerly U.S. District Judge for the district of Connecticut:

NEW YORK, October 20, 1889.

DEAR JUDGE:

* * * * *

I have attentively read Judge Sawyer's opinion in the Neagle habeas corpus case, and I agree with his main conclusions. It seems to me that the whole question of jurisdiction turns on the fact whether you were, at the time the assault was made on you, engaged in the performance of your official duty.

You had been to Los Angeles to hold court there and had finished that business. In going there you were performing an official duty as much as you were when you had held court there. It was then your official duty to go from Los Angeles to San Francisco and hold court there. You could not hold court at the latter place without going, and you were engaged in the line of your official duty in performing that journey for that purpose, as you were in holding the court after you got there. The idea that a judge is not performing official duty when he goes from court-house to court-house or from court-room to court-room in his own circuit seems to me to be absurd. The distance from one court-house or court-room to another is not material, and does not change or modify the act or duty of the judge.

Now, Neagle was an officer of your court, charged with the duty of protecting your person while you were engaged in the performance of your official duty. His duty was to see to it that you were not unlawfully prevented from performing your official duty—not hindered or obstructed therein. For the State authorities to indict him for repelling the assault on you in the only way which he could do so effectually seems to me to be as unwarranted by law as it would be for them to indict him for an assault on Terry when he assisted in disarming the latter in the court-room last year.

When, therefore, it was conceded on the argument that if the affair at Lathrop had taken place in the court-room during the sitting of the court, the jurisdiction of the Circuit Court would be unquestionable, it is difficult for me to see why the whole question of federal jurisdiction was not embraced in that concession. Assassinating a judge on the bench would no more obstruct and defeat public justice than assassinating him on his way to the bench. In each case he is proceeding in the line of official duty imposed on him by law and his official oath. The law requires him to go to court wherever the latter is held, and he is as much engaged in performing the duty thus imposed on him while he is proceeding to the place of his judicial labors as he is in performing the latter after he gets there.