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148 F.2d 19

Docket No. 8886.

Sanders v. Bennett

District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals

Argued Feb. 12, 1945.

Decided March 5, 1945.

District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals · decided 1945-03-05

2 counsel of record

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“For that reason, the proper person to be served in the ordinary case is the warden of the penitentiary in which the prisoner is confined rather than an official in Washington, D.C., who supervises the warden. An interpretation which would permit resort to the courts in the District of Columbia for writs of habeas corpus by prisoners in federal institutions all over the United States is without justification either in convenience or logic.”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including Taylor v. Washington, Francisco Vasquez v. Janet Reno Attorney General

“a practical one based on common sense administration of justice.”

quoted by 2 later decisions, including Henderson v. Immigration and Naturalization Service Navas, Kholyavskiy v. Achim

Relies on Sanders v. Allen · Jones v. Biddle · McGowan v. Moody

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1945-03-05

How this case has been cited

Cited by 73 later decisions (6 by the Supreme Court) — most recently April 2006 · most notably Rumsfeld Secretary of Defense v. Padilla et al. (2004), Ahrens v. Clark (1948)

40 federal appellate · 10 district · 4 state decisions

1901945195019601970198019902000decided

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.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

¶1Mr. James J. Laughlin, of Washington, D. C., for appellant.

¶2Mr. Charles B. Murray, Assistant United States Attorney, of Washington, D. C., with whom Mr. Edward M. Curran, United States Attorney, of Washington, D. C., was on the brief, for appellee.

¶3Before MILLER, EDGERTON and ARNOLD, Associate Justices.

¶4ARNOLD, Associate Justice.

¶5The sole question raised on this appeal is whether a court in the District of Columbia has jurisdiction to issue a writ of habeas corpus against the Attorney General of the United States or his representative on petition of a federal prisoner confined outside the District of Columbia.

¶6*20By statute all persons convicted of an offense against the United States are committed to the custody of the Attorney General who designates their places of confinement.1 But the Attorney General is not the person directly responsible for the operation of our federal penitentiaries. He is a supervising official rather than a jailer. For that reason, the proper person to be served in the ordinary case is the warden of the penitentiary in which the prisoner is confined rather than an official in Washington, D. C., who supervises the warden. An interpretation which would permit resort to the courts in the District of Columbia for writs of habeas corpus by prisoners in federal institutions all over the United States is without justification either in convenience or logic. For that reason, only courts having jurisdiction over the warden of a penitentiary can grant a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of any of its inmates.2

¶7Since the rule is a practical one based on common sense administration of justice we have held that the courts in the District of Columbia may issue writs of habeas corpus directed to those in direct charge of penal institutions of the District which happen to be located just outside its borders.3 This is because it is the plain duty of the District to adjudicate matters arising out of the conduct of its own institutions.

¶8The order of the court below will, therefore, be affirmed.

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