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71 Ky. 461

Commonwealth v. Salyer

Court of Appeals of Kentucky

Decided December 13, 1871

Court of Appeals of Kentucky · decided 1871-12-13

<p>1. A county judge or magistrate has no authority to take a bail-bond from a prisoner brought before him for examination of a charge of felony committed in another county. He has no right to take temporary bail for the appearance of the accused before him.</p> <p>2. A prisoner was arrested and brought before the presiding judge of the Montgomery County Court for examination of a charge of murder committed in the county of Lewis. The examination being postponed, the prisoner was admitted to bail. The bail-bond thus taken was unauthorized and void. (Criminal Code, section 43.)</p>

Decided 1871-12-13

JUDGE HABDIN

¶1delivered the opinion op the court.

¶2On the 13th of December, 1870, James Mays, being under arrest in Montgomery County, and charged with the crime *462of murder committed in Lewis County, was brought before W. H. Winn, the presiding judge of the Montgomery County Court, for an examination of the charge; and the prisoner desiring a postponement of his case, the appellee, W. J. Salyer, and another, executed a bail-bond in the sum of five hundred dollars, stipulating that Mays would appear before Winn on the 15th of said month to answer said charge. Mays appeared on the day designated in the bond, but by consent his case was continued until the 26th day of the same month; but he then failed to appear, and thereupon the judge indorsed the bond “ forfeited,” and transmitted it to the circuit court, where this action was instituted by the commonwealth 'for a recovery on the bond.

¶3The appellee, being duly summoned, appeared, and in answer to the summons presented several grounds of defense; one of which, and the only one which will now be considered, being that the judge of the Montgomery County Court had no power or authority to require or take the bail-bond, and that it was therefore void.

¶4Since the passage of the act of March 8, 1867, “to amend the Criminal Code of Practice,” a county judge, or other magistrate or officers composing an examining court, having in custody a person charged with the commission of a felony within his or their jurisdiction as an examining court, may, on a postponement of the examination, admit the accused to bail. But where, as in this case, the offense is charged to have been committed in another county than that in which the arrest is made, and is a felony, the authority of the judge or magistrate before whom the defendant may be brought is limited to the inquiry, whether there are sufficient grounds for an examination in the county in which the offense may have been committed; the duty of the magistrate being, in that event, to “commit the defendant to a peace officer, to be conveyed by him before a magistrate of the county in which the offense *463is charged to have been committed.” (Criminal Code,' sec. 43.) But in such a case we are aware of no law authorizing the magistrate to take temporary bail for the appearance of the accused before him, either during the examination or preliminary to it.

¶5We are of the opinion therefore that the judgment in bar of the proceeding against the appellee was properly rendered. Wherefore said judgment is affirmed.

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