Lancaster

Supreme Court of the United States

December 5, 1890.

Supreme Court of the United States · decided 1890-12-05

Held: that this court would not interfere. This was a motion for leave to file the following petition for a writ of habeas, corpus. To the Honorable, The Supreme Court of the United States: The petition of Wright Lancaster, Jno. K. Lancaster, Henry Lancaster, Jas.

2 counsel of record

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

““Where persons indicted in the circuit court, and in custody, have not invoked the action of the circuit court by a motion to quash the indictment or otherwise, the court will deny leave to file here a, petition for writ of habeas corpus, asked upon the ground that the matters charged do not constitute any offense under the laws of the United States or cognizable in the circuit court, and that for other reasons the indictment cannot he sustained.””

quoted by 1 later decision, including In re Hacker

Relies on Royall · Ex parte Virginia · Kemmler

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Petition denied / appeal dismissed · 8–0 · Decided 1890-12-05

How this case has been cited

Cited by 38 later decisions (4 by the Supreme Court) — most recently February 1945 · most notably Pierce v. Creecy (1908), 19 Cal. 2d 488 - In Re Bell (1942)

13 federal appellate · 6 district · 7 state decisions

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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A. O. Bacon and Washington Dessau, for petitioners.

[Argument of Counsel from page pages 394-395 intentionally omitted]

FULLER, C. J.

¶1

The petitioners were indicted, under sections 5508 and 5509 of the Revised Statutes, on the 20th of November, 1890, in the circuit court for the southern district of Georgia, and have been taken into custody. They have not invoked the action of the circuit court upon the sufficiency of the indictment by a motion to quash or otherwise, but ask leave to file in this court a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, upon the ground that the matters and things set forth and charged do not constitute any offense or offenses underth e laws of the United States, or cognizable in the circuit court, and that for other reasons the indictment cannot be sustained. In this posture of the case we must decline to interfere. The application for leave to file the petition is denied.