about one sixth of its local freight busi- | ness, where the rate so authorized is nearly 2 mills per ton larger than that company's average local freight rate.

[Nos. 10, 11.]

report which it had made to the railroad commission for the year ending June 30, 1904, and the report of the railroad commission to the governor of the state for the year ending March 1, 1904, and upon these two reports the cases were considered by the

Statement by Mr. Justice Brewer: These cases resemble the one immediately 'preceding, in this: that review is sought in each of an award of a peremptory writ of mandamus by the supreme court of Florida to compel compliance with an order of the state railroad commission. In the first, the court sustained an order of the commission, made June 25, 1903, and to go into effect July 1, 1903, prescribing rates on the Florida West Shore Railway, charged to be under the control and management of the plaintiff in error (48 Fla. 129-152, 37 So. 314, 657, 658), the order being in these words: "It is hereby ordered and adjudged by the railroad commission of the state of Florida that the following schedule of freight tariffs shall be allowed and adopted for freight shipments over the Seaboard Air Line Railway, to apply only to shipments from or destined to points on the Florida West Shore Railway, and from points on the Florida West Shore Railway to points on the Florida West Shore Railway, and the same shall be put into operation and be effective on the 1st day of July, A. D. 1903," and followed by the schedule; and in the second, it enforced the order of the commission in respect to phosphates (which was noticed by us in the opinion in the preceding case). 48 Fla. 150, 37 So. 658.

The proceedings before the commission are not disclosed, nor is there anything to show upon what the orders were based. There was notice and a hearing. And in the pleadings in the first case appear the contracts between the plaintiff in error and the Florida West Shore Railway.

In the supreme court the relator presented no testimony, relying upon the statutory presumption which attends an order of the commission. The defendant introduced the

Messrs. Hilary A. Herbert, George P. Raney, and Benjamin Micou for plaintiff in

Mr. Justice Brewer delivered the opinion of the court:

There are no special findings of facts in these cases, and only from an examination of the opinions filed by the supreme court

can we ascertain what its conclusions were or upon what its judgments were based. It may well be doubted whether a railroad company can rely, as evidence in its own and while a report of the railroad commisbehalf, upon a report made and filed by it, sion to the governor may undoubtedly be used against it in an application made at its instance to secure compliance with one of its orders, yet there is little in its report which throws light upon the questions in these cases.

Referring to the first case, in which is presented the reasonableness of an order made by the commission respecting local rates for business on, to, or from the Florida West Shore Railway, we find it stated in the brief of the plaintiff in error that the railroad commission on December 22, 1903, made an order, to go into effect July 1, 1904, reducing local freight rates generally; that from this order no appeal was taken; that in November, 1903, an order was made reducing by 10 per cent rates on certain freights going over two or more roads, and that from such order no appeal was taken. These are the orders referred to in the report of the commission to the governor. But the order in controversy was made on June 25, 1903, to go into effect July 1, 1903, and is applicable solely to the Florida West Shore road. Now, whether this order of June 25, 1903, was simply operative to make the rates on the Florida West Shore road the

same as those then obtaining generally in the state, or whether it made them higher or lower than such rates, does not appear. For some reason, not disclosed, the order touched only the local freight rates to and from the Florida West Shore Railway and over the Seaboard Air Line Railway. Even if the total receipts by the latter company from local freight rates were insufficient to meet what could properly be cast as a burden upon that business, such insufficiency

A requisition by the governor of Idaho was accordingly issued and was duly honored by the governor of Colorado, who issued a warrant commanding the arrest of Pettibone and his delivery to the authorized agent of Idaho, to be conveyed to the latter state. Pettibone was arrested under that warrant and carried to Idaho by its agent, and was there delivered by order of the probate judge into the custody of the warden of the state penitentiary, the jail of the county being deemed at that time an unfit place.

On the 23d day of February, 1906, Pettibone sued out a writ of habeas corpus from the supreme court of Idaho. The warden made a return, stating the circumstances under which the accused came into his custody, and also that the charge against Pettibone was then under investigation by the grand jury. To this return the accused made an answer embodying the same matters as were alleged in the application for the writ of habeas corpus, and charging, in substance, that his presence in Idaho had been procured by connivance, conspiracy, and fraud on the part of the executive officers of Idaho, and that his detention was in violation of the provisions of the Constitution of the United States and of the act of Congress relating to fugitives from justice.

Subsequently, March 7th, 1906, the grand jury returned an indictment against Pettibone, William D. Haywood, Charles H. Moyer, and John L. Simpkins, charging them with the murder of Steunenberg on the 30th of December, 1905, at Caldwell, Idaho. Having been arrested and being in custody under that indictment, the officer holding Pettibone made an amended return stating the fact of the above indictment, and that he was then held under a bench warrant based thereon.

its justice; that, after the prisoner came within the jurisdiction of the demanding state, he could not raise in its courts the question whether he was or had been, as a matter of fact, a fugitive from the justice of that state; that the courts of Idaho had no jurisdiction to inquire into the acts or motives of the executive of the state delivering the prisoner; that "one who commits a crime against the laws of a state, whether committed by him while in person on its soil, or absent in a foreign jurisdiction, and acting through some other agency or medium, has no vested right of asylum in a sister state," and the fact "that a wrong is committed against him in the manner or method pursued in subjecting his person to the jurisdiction of the complaining state, and that such wrong is redressible either in the civil or criminal courts, can constitute no legal or just reason why he himself should not answer the charge against him when brought before the proper tribunal." Ex parte Moyer, 85 Pac. 897; Ex parte Pettibone, 85 Pac. 902.

From the judgment of the supreme court of Idaho a writ of error was prosecuted to this court. That case is No. 265 on the docket of the present term, but the record has not been printed. But the parties agree that the same questions are presented on this appeal as arise in that case, and as this case is one of urgency in the affairs of a state, we have acceded to the request that they may be argued and determined on this appeal.

On the 15th of March, 1906, after the final judgment in the supreme court of Idaho, Pettibone made application to the circuit court of the United States, sitting in Idaho, for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging that he was restrained of his liberty by the sheriff of Canyon county, in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States. As was done in the supreme court of Idaho, the accused set out numerous facts and circumstances which, he contended, showed that his personal presence in Idaho was secured by fraud and connivance on the part of the executive officers and agents of both Idaho and Colorado, in violation of the constitutional and statutory provisions relating to fugitives from justice. Consequently, it was argued, the court in Idaho did not acquire jurisdiction over his person. The officer having Pettibone in custody made return to the writ that he then held the accused under the bench warrant issued

party held in custody by a state, and seek

trial in the state court, which, it will be assumed, will enforce-as it has the power to do equally with a court of the United States (Robb v. Connolly, 111 U. S. 624, 637, 28 L.

That application is too lengthy to be incorporated at large in this opinion. It is sufficient to say that its allegations present the case of a conspiracy between the governors of Idaho and Colorado, and the respective officers and agents of those states, to have the accused taken from Colorado to Idaho under such circumstances and in such way as would deprive him, while in Colorado, of the privilege of invoking the jurisdiction of the courts there for his protection against wrongful deportation from the state, -it being alleged that the governor of Idaho, the prosecuting attorney of Canyon county, and the private counsel who advised them, well knew all the time that "he was not in the state of Idaho on the 30th day of December, 1905, nor at any time near that date." The application also alleged that the accused "is not and was not a fugitive from justice; that he was not present in the state of Idaho when the alleged crime was alleged to have been committed, nor for months prior thereto, nor thereafter, until brought into the state as aforesaid."

In the forefront of this case is the fact that the appellant is held in actual custody for trial under an indictment in one of the courts of Idaho for the crime of murder, charged to have been committed in that state, against its laws, and it is the purpose of the state to try the question of his guilt or innocence of that charge.

Undoubtedly, the circuit court had jurisdiction to discharge the appellant from the custody of the state authorities if their exercise of jurisdiction over his person would be in violation of any rights secured to him by the Constitution or laws of the United States. But that court had a discretion as to the time and mode in which, by the exercise of such power, it would, by its process, obstruct or delay a criminal prosecution in the state court. The duty of a Federal court to interfere, on habeas corpus, for the protection of one alleged to be restrained of his liberty in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States, 27 S. C.-8.

secured by the supreme law of the land. "When the state court," this court has said, "shall have finally acted upon the case, the circuit court has still a discretion whether, under all the circumstances then existing, the accused, if convicted, shall be put to his writ of error from the highest court of the state, or whether it will proceed, by writ of habeas corpus, summarily to determine whether the petitioner is restrained of his liberty in violation of the Constitution of the United States." Ex parte Royall, 117 U. S. 241, 251-253, 29 L. ed. 868, 871, 872, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 734. To the same effect are numerous cases in this court, among which may be named Ex parte Fonda, 117 U. S. 516, 29 L. ed. 994, 6 Sup. Ct. Rep. 848; New York v. Eno, 155 U. S. 89, 93, 39 L. ed. 80, 82, 15 Sup. Ct. Rep. 30; Cook v. Hart, 146 U. S. 183, 192, 36 L. ed. 934, 939, 13 Sup. Ct. Rep. 40; Minnesota v. Brundage, 180 U. S. 499, 501, 45 L. ed. 639, 640, 21 Sup. Ct. Rep. 455; Reid v. Jones, 187 U. S. 153, 47 L. ed. 116, 23 Sup. Ct. Rep. 89; Riggins v. United States, 199 U. S. 547, 549, 50 L. ed. 303, 304, 26 Sup. Ct. Rep. 147. This rule, firmly established for the guidance of the courts of the United States, is applicable here, although it appears that the supreme court of Idaho has already decided some of the questions now raised. But the question of Pettibone's guilt of the crime of having murdered Steunenberg has not, however, been finally determined, and cannot be except by a trial under the laws and in the courts of Idaho. If he should be acquitted by the jury, then no question will remain as to a violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States by the methods adopted to secure his personal presence within the state of Idaho.

The appellant, however, contends that the principle settled in Ex parte Royall and other like cases can have application only where the state has legally acquired jurisdiction over the person of the accused, and cannot apply when, as is alleged to be the case here, his presence in Idaho was obtained by fraud and by a violation of rights guaranteed by the Constitution and laws of the United States. Under such circumstances, it is contended, no jurisdiction could legally attach for the purpose of trying the accused under the indictment for murder.