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100 Ala. 101

Ex parte Thomas

Supreme Court of Alabama

Decided November 15, 1893

Supreme Court of Alabama · decided 1893-11-15

From the Probate Court of Butler. Heard before the Hon. Zell Gaston. ■ The petitioner, George Thomas, was arrested by the police force of the city of Greenville, on the charge of larceny from a dwelling, without any affidavit having been made, or warrant issued for his arrest.

Relies on Floyd v. State · Williams v. State · Ex parte Riley

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1893-11-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions — most recently July 1954

4 state decisions

201893190019101920193019401950decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

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HARALSON, J.

¶1Section 4262 of the Code authorizes an officer to arrest any person without warrant, when a felony has been committed by the party arrested, though not in his presence; and in Williams v. The State, 44 Ala. 41, it was held, that an arrest without a warrant is not illegal, that it is the issue of a warrant without oath, or affirmation, which is forbidden by the Constitution.—Floyd v. The State, 82 Ala. 23.

¶2But, aside from this, when a party is arrested on a criminal charge, without a warrant, and is taken before a magistrate, who investigates the charge, and it appears to him that the offense has been committed, and there is a probable cause to believe that the defendant is guilty thereof, and he commits him to jail in default of a bond, if the offense is bailable, or without bond if not bailable, the commitment is legal. As conservators of the peace, magistrates are authorized, not only to issue warrants of arrest, but to commit persons already before them, when the occasion for the commitment judicially appears.—Ex parte Graves, 61 Ala. 384; Ex parte Riley, 94 Ala. 82.

¶3Habeas corpus denied.

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