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153 Mass. 154

Bradley v. Beetle

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court

Decided January 12, 1891

Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court · decided 1891-01-12

Tort, for an assault and false imprisonment. Trial in the Superior Court before Hammond, J., who ordered a verdict for the defendant, and reported the case for the determination of this court, in substance as follows. The plaintiff was arrested on an execution, dated October 11, 1887, and issued upon a judgment rendered against him in favor of the defendant. The affidavit required by the Pub.

Relies on Tarble's Case · People Ex Rel. Lawrence v. . Brady · In re Ring

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1891-01-12

How this case has been cited

Cited by 8 later decisions — most recently November 1923

2 federal appellate · 2 district · 4 state decisions

301891190019101920decided

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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Field, C. J.

¶1It is unnecessary to decide whether, in the proceedings on habeas corpus, the parties were in any proper sense the same as in the present action. See Commonwealth v. Briggs, 16 Pick. 203. At common law, a final judgment remanding the prisoner in proceedings on habeas corpus is not a bar to a subsequent application for another writ of habeas corpus. Ex parte Partington, 13 M. & W. 679. Cox v. Hakes, 15 App. Cas. 506,

¶2The Pub. Sts. c. 185, § 26, provide that “ no person who has been discharged upon a habeas corpus shall be again imprisoned or restrained for the same cause, unless,” etc. Accordingly, it was held in McConologue’s case, 107 Mass. 154, 171, that “the judicial discharge of a prisoner upon habeas corpus conclusively settles that he was not liable to be held in custody upon the then existing state of facts.” This declaration is undoubtedly true in this Commonwealth, although by the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Tarble’s case, 13 Wall. 397, this court had no jurisdiction in McConologue’s case. But, from the nature of the proceedings, a judgment discharging a prisoner has a different effect upon subsequent proceedings from a judgment remanding a prisoner. The proceedings on habeas corpus are intended to be summary; the hearing is often had before a single justice, with no absolute right of exception or appeal; and out of regard for the liberty of the subject, it has been considered that a judgment against the prisoner on habeas corpus should not be considered as conclusive against him in future proceedings, whether all the material facts were presented at the previous hearings or not. It is not important now to determine whether it may nót be a matter of discretion in the court or justice to hear and determine a new application for a writ of habeas corpus, when it appears that the same state of facts con-tinues to exist as at former hearings, or whether the prisoner has in every case the right to have successive applications heard and determined on their merits, even if all the facts were presented at the previous hearings. It is sufficient for the present case, that a judgment on habeas corpus remanding the prisoner is not, *157as matter of law, a bar to subsequent proceedings of the same kind, founded on the same facts; and a fortiori such a judgment is not a bar to the present action. People v. Brady, 56 N. Y. 182. Ex parte Kaine, 3 Blatchf. C. C. 1. In re Perkins, 2 Cal. 424. In re Ring, 28 Cal. 247. Ex parte Alexander, 2 Am. Law Reg. 44. Church on Habeas Corpus, § 386.

¶3Verdict set aside.

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