ween the United
States Marshal and the Ohio Sheriff also came on, February
26th before Judge Leavitt, of the United States District
Court, and was argued by counsel on both sides. On the 28th,
Judge Leavitt decided that the custody was with the United
States Marshal. The substance of Judge L.'s argument and
decision is found in the following extract.
"Judge McLean says: 'Neither this nor any other Court of the
United States, nor Judge thereof, can issue a _habeas corpus_
to bring up a prisoner who is in custody under the sentence
or execution of a State Court, for any other purpose than to
be used as a witness. And it is immaterial whether the
imprisonment be under _civil or criminal process_.' If it be
true, as there asserted, that no Federal Court can interfere
with the exercise of the proper jurisdiction of a State
Court, either in a civil or criminal case, the converse of
the proposition is equally true. And it results that a State
Court cannot take from an officer of the United States, even
on a criminal charge, the custody of a person in execution on
a civil case.
"It is said in argument that if these persons cannot be held
by the arrest of the Sheriff under the State process, the
rights and dignity of Ohio are invaded without the
possibility of redress. I cannot concur in this view. The
Constitution and laws of the United States provide for a
reclamation of these persons, by a demand on the Executive of
Kentucky. It is true, if now remanded to the claimant and
taken back to Kentucky as slaves, they cannot be said to have
fled from justice in Ohio; but it would clearly be a case
within the spirit and intention of the Constitution and the
Act of Congress, and I trust nothing would be hazarded by the
prediction that upon demand properly made upon the Governor
of Kentucky, he would order them to be surrendered to the
authorities of Ohio to answer to its violated law. I am sure
it is not going too far to say that if the strictness of the
law did not require this, an appeal to comity would not be in
vain."
Mr. Chambers said his client, Mr. Gaines, authorized him to
say that he would hold the woman Margaret, who had killed her
child, subject to the requisition of the Governor of Ohio, to
answer for any crime she mi
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