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7 Kan. 48

Ex parte Phillips

Supreme Court of Kansas

Decided January 15, 1871

Supreme Court of Kansas · decided 1871-01-15

Petition for a Writ of Habeas Corpus. Charles Phillips filed his petition in this court for a writ of habeas corpus to be discharged from an alleged illegal imprisonment. The facts as set forth in the petition and record are as follows: An information was filed in the district court of Dickinson county, charging •the petitioner with grand larceny. The petitioner plead not guilty. A jury was impanneled and sworn.

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1871-01-15

How this case has been cited

Cited by 6 later decisions — most recently June 1940

6 state decisions

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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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¶1By the Court,

Brewer, J.:

¶2The petitioner alleges that he is unlawfully restrained of his liberty, and asks the interposition of this'court to release him. Do the petition and the record of the proceedings in the district court present a case which calls for the interposition of this court by habeas corpus ? This court has original jurisdiction in habeas corpus proceedings; but in such cases has no greater power than any other court having jurisdiction in habeas corpus, to inquire into the regularity of proceedings upon which a person is restrained of his liberty. It is not every improper, illegal restraint of liberty that can he inquired into on habeas corpus. The limits beyond which no court can go, are fixed by statute. Section 671 of our civil code, (Gen. Stat., 763,) reads thus : No court or judge shall inquire into the legality “ of any judgment or process whereby the party is in “ custody, or discharge him, when the term of commit“ment has not expired in ^fiber of the cases following: Fourth: Upon a warrant or commitment issued “ from the district court, or any other court of competent “jurisdiction, upon an indictment or information.”

¶3The plain import of this language forbids an inquiry (at this time) into the alleged errors in the proceedings of the district court. An information was filed; it still remains; no verdict or judgment was ever returned, or rendered thereon. If the discharge of the jury has the effect claimed by counsel for petitioner, (anduponthatpoint we express no opinion,) it can be shown upon the trial *50of the ease. If the judgment of the district court upon this point, and the result of the trial, shall be adverse to the petitioner, he can then present the question regularly to this court on appeal. As sustaining this construction, see: The Commonwealth v. Norton, et al., 8 Serg. & Rawle, 71; Wright v. The State, 5 Ind., 290; The People v. Ruloff, 5 Parker’s Cr. Rep., 83.

¶4The writ of habeas corpus is refused.

All the Justices concurring.
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