4 U.S. 286 - Smythe v. Banks — 4 U.S. 286

How this case has been cited

Cited by 4 later decisions (1 by the Supreme Court) — most recently November 1905

2 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.

¶1Present — Iredell, Justice, and Peters, District Judge.

¶2Privilege of witness.

¶3A witness is privileged from arrest, for a reasonable time, to prepare for his departure, and return to his home, as well as during his actual attendance upon the court.

¶4Capias. The defendant was a resident of Virginia, and had been subpoenaed as a witness in the case of Sims’s Lessee v. Irvine, which was marked for trial at the present term, but was continued on the 20th of April. He was arrested on the 26th of April; and the following day, Levy moved, that he should be discharged from the arrest and process, on account of the privilege of a witness, eundo, morando et redeundo. 4 Com. Dig. 475; 2 Str. 1094, 986; Vin. Abr., tit. Priv.

¶5By the Court.

¶6— The witness is, undoubtedly, privileged from arrest for a reasonable time, to prepare for his departure, and return to his home, as well as during his actual attendance upon the court. But the privilege does not extend throughout the term at which the cause is marked for trial; nor will it protect him, while the witness is engaged in transacting his general private business, after he is discharged from the obligation of the subpoena.