Page:Federal Reporter, 1st Series, Volume 4.djvu/208

 194 7SDEBAL BBPOltTSB. �attorney, that the only evidence produced to the committing magistrats was a certified copy of an indictment found by the grand jury of the United States for the district of Oregon. �It is contended, on behalf of the petitioner, that the indict- ment nowhere alleges the crime to have been committed on the high seas or within the district of Oregon; but, on the contrary, it affirmatively appears that the offence, if any, -was committed in Washington territory. The district attorney objects to the consideration by the court of this question, and contends that the duty of the district judge in the premises is purely ministerial, and restricted to issuing a warrant for the removal of the prisoner "to the district where the trial is to be had." Eev. St. 1014. This view of the powers and duties of the district judge in this class of cases, or of the powers and duties of the circuit or district court, -wheù the prisoner is brought before it on haheas corpus, cannot be maintained. In the case of In re Buell, 3 Dillon, 116, the question was presented, under circumstances very similar to those of the case at the bar, to the circuit court for the eighth circuit. Buell was arrested and committed in Michigan for trial in the District of Columbia on an indictment, found in that district, charging him with having written a libel therein, which he afterwards published in Detroit. It was contended there, as here, that the question of the sufficiency of the indictment was for the court in which it was found, and not for the district judge on an application for the warrant of removal. On this Judge Dillon observes : "I cannot agree to the proposition in the breadth claimedfor it in the present case. The provision devolves on a high judicial officer of the govemnient a useful and important duty. In a country of such vast extent as ours, it is not a light mat- ter to arrest a supposed offender, and, on the mere order of an inferior magistrate, remove him hundreds, it maybethou- sands, of miles for trial. The law wisely requires the pre- vious sanction of the district judge to such removal. Mere technical defects in an indictihent should not be regarded; but a district judge who should order the removal of a pris- oner, when the only probable cause relied on or shown was an indictment, and that indictment failed to show an offence ����