In re Neagle

135 U.S. 1

Case Year: 1890

Case Ruling: 6-2, Affirmed

Opinion Justice: Miller

FACTS

Stephen J. Field and David S. Terry came to California during the 1849 gold rush, Field from New England and Terry from the South. Both became judges on the California Supreme Court, with Terry its chief justice. [i] In 1859 a bitter dispute erupted between Judge Terry and David Broderick, a U.S. senator. Terry resigned his position, challenged Broderick to a duel, and killed him. Field was a close friend of Broderick, and he vowed never to forget the killing. Field was then elevated to the chief justiceship of the state court, and four years later President Abraham Lincoln appointed him to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Terry went into private practice and eventually came to represent Sarah Althea Hill in a divorce action. Hill claimed to be the wife of William Sharon, a former U.S. senator from Nevada, who was a millionaire mine operator and hotel owner. Hill charged Sharon with adultery and sued for divorce, but Sharon denied ever having married her. Many believed that she was just another in a long series of mistresses Sharon had after his wife died. Sarah Hill claimed to have a document proving the marriage was valid, but during the divorce hearing the court ruled the document to be a forgery and dismissed her action.

In the meantime, William Sharon died, and his son Frederick took legal action to dismantle any claim Sarah Hill had to his father's estate. Attorney Terry by this time had fallen in love with his beautiful client (and perhaps also with her potentially large inheritance) and married her. As luck would have it, in September 1888 Justice Field was assigned to a three-judge circuit court to decide the suit brought by Frederick Sharon against Sarah Terry. When the judges announced their ruling in favor of Sharon, violence erupted in the courtroom. Sarah Terry shouted accusations that Field had been bribed to reach his decision. Field ordered the marshals to remove her, and David Terry, defending his wife, struck a marshal and knocked out a tooth. He also brandished a bowie knife, and Sarah attempted to grab a revolver from her purse. The marshals subdued both of them. Sarah Terry was sentenced to one month in jail for contempt, and David Terry to six months in jail.

During his imprisonment, Terry's hatred of his former colleague festered. On several occasions and before numerous witnesses, he pledged to horsewhip and then kill Field if the justice ever returned to California. Sarah Terry also threatened to kill Field. In response, President Benjamin Harrison and the U.S. attorney general decided to provide protection for Justice Field on his next judicial visit to California. The administration authorized a federal marshal, David Neagle, to act as Field's bodyguard when the justice was assigned circuit court duty in California.

Field returned to California in the summer of 1889. Neagle was with him at all times. Traveling from Los Angeles to San Francisco by train, Field disembarked at Lathrop to eat breakfast in the station dining room. The Terrys, who had been on the same train, entered the dining room and saw him. Sarah returned to the train to get her revolver, while David walked up behind Field, slapped him twice on the side of the face, and raised his fist for a third blow. Neagle immediately rose from his seat with his revolver drawn and ordered Terry to stop. Terry reached into his coat, and Neagle, fearing that he was going for a weapon, fired two shots, one to the chest and the other to the head. When Terry's body was searched, no weapons were found.

Sarah Terry, who was to spend her last forty-five years in a state mental institution, claimed that her husband had been murdered by Neagle in conspiracy with Field. She was sufficiently convincing that the bodyguard was arrested and charged with murder. Charges also were filed against Field as an accomplice, but they were later dropped.

A federal court granted a writ of habeas corpus ordering state authorities to release Neagle, and California appealed. The issue before the Supreme Court was Neagle's legal authority to act as he did. The central question was whether the president, without congressional action, could issue an executive order through the U.S. attorney general to authorize a bodyguard to protect Justice Field. The attorney general claimed that the president's constitutional obligation to take care that the laws be faithfully executed was sufficient ground for Neagle's appointment. The state contended that the president did not have such power, in which case Neagle could be tried for murder.

 

MR. JUSTICE MILLER DELIVERED THE OPINION OF THE COURT.

The justices of the Supreme Court have been members of the Circuit Courts of the United States ever since the organization of the government, and their attendance on the circuit and appearance at the places where the courts are held has always been thought to be a matter of importance. In order to enable him to perform this duty, Mr. Justice Field had to travel each year from Washington City, near the Atlantic coast, to San Francisco, on the Pacific coast. In doing this he was as much in the discharge of a duty imposed upon him by law as he was while sitting in court and trying cases. There are many duties which the judge performs outside of the court-room where he sits to pronounce judgment or to preside over a trial. The statutes of the United States, and the established practice of the courts, require that the judge perform a very large share of his judicial labors at what is called "chambers." This chamber work is as important as necessary, as much a discharge of his official duty as that performed in the court-house. Important cases are often argued before the judge at any place convenient to the parties concerned, and a decision of the judge is arrived at by investigations made in his own room, wherever he may be, and it is idle to say that this is not as much the performance of judicial duty as the filing of the judgment with the clerk, and the announcement of the result in open court. . . .

Justice Field had not only left Washington and travelled the three thousand miles or more which were necessary to reach his circuit, but he had entered upon the duties of that circuit, had held the court at San Francisco for some time; and, taking a short leave of that court, had gone down to Los Angeles, another place where a court was to be held, and sat as a judge there for several days, hearing cases and rendering decisions. It was in the necessary act of returning from Los Angeles to San Francisco, by the usual mode of travel between the two places, where his court was still in session, and where he was required to be, that he was assaulted by Terry. . . .

The occurrence which we are called upon to consider was of so extraordinary a character that it is not to be expected that many cases can be found to cite as authority upon the subject. . . .

We have no doubt that Mr. Justice Field when attacked by Terry was engaged in the discharge of his duties as Circuit Justice of the Ninth Circuit, and was entitled to all the protection under those circumstances which the law could give him.

It is urged, however, that there exists no statute authorizing any such protection as that which Neagle was instructed to give Judge Field in the present case, and indeed no protection whatever against a vindictive or malicious assault growing out of the faithful discharge of his official duties; and that the language of section 753 of the Revised Statutes, that the party seeking the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus must in this connection show that he is "in custody for an act done or omitted in pursuance of a law of the United States," makes it necessary that upon this occasion it should be shown that the act for which Neagle is imprisoned was done by virtue of an act of Congress. It is not supposed that any special act of Congress exists which authorizes the marshals or deputy marshals of the United States in express terms to accompany the judges of the Supreme Court through their circuits, and act as a bodyguard to them, to defend them against malicious assaults against their persons. But we are of opinion that this view of the statute is an unwarranted restriction of the meaning of a law designed to extend in a liberal manner the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus to persons imprisoned for the performance of their duty. And we are satisfied that if it was the duty of Neagle, under the circumstances, a duty which could only arise under the laws of the United States, to defend Mr. Justice Field from a murderous attack upon him, he brings himself within the meaning of the section we have recited. This view of the subject is confirmed by the alternative provision, that he must be in custody "for an act done or omitted in pursuance of a law of the United States or of an order, process, or decree of a court or judge thereof, or is in custody in violation of the Constitution or of a law or treaty of the United States."

In the view we take of the Constitution of the United States, any obligation fairly and properly inferrible from that instrument, or any duty of the marshal to be derived from the general scope of his duties under the laws of the United States, is "a law" within the meaning of this phrase. It would be a great reproach to the system of government of the United States, declared to be within its sphere sovereign and supreme, if there is to be found within the domain of its powers no means of protecting the judges, in the conscientious and faithful discharge of their duties, from the malice and hatred of those upon whom their judgments may operate unfavorably. . . .

Where, then, are we to look for the protection which we have shown Judge Field was entitled to when engaged in the discharge of his official duties? Not to the courts of the United States; because, as has been more than once said in this court, in the division of the powers of government between the three great departments, executive, legislative and judicial, the judicial is the weakest for the purposes of self-protection and for the enforcement of the powers which it exercises. The ministerial officers through whom its commands must be executed are marshals of the United States, and belong emphatically to the executive department of the government. They are appointed by the President, with the advice and consent of the Senate. They are removable from office at his pleasure. They are subjected by act of Congress to the supervision and control of the Department of Justice, in the hands of one of the cabinet officers of the President, and their compensation is provided by acts of Congress. The same may be said of the district attorneys of the United States, who prosecute and defend the claims of the government in the courts.

The legislative branch of the government can only protect the judicial officers by the enactment of laws for that purpose, and the argument we are now combating assumes that no such law has been passed by Congress.

If we turn to the executive department of the government, we find a very different condition of affairs. The Constitution, section 3, Article 2, declares that the President "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed," and he is provided with the means of fulfilling this obligation by his authority to commission all the officers of the United States, and, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint the most important of them and to fill vacancies. He is declared to be commander-in-chief of the army and navy of the United States. The duties which are thus imposed upon him he is further enabled to perform by the recognition in the Constitution, and the creation by acts of Congress, of executive departments, which have varied in number from four or five to seven or eight, the heads of which are familiarly called cabinet ministers. These aid him in the performance of the great duties of his office, and represent him in a thousand acts to which it can hardly be supposed his personal attention is called, and thus he is enabled to fulfill the duty of his great department, expressed in the phrase that "he shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed."

Is this duty limited to the enforcement of acts of Congress or of treaties of the United States according to their express terms, or does it include the rights, duties and obligations growing out of the Constitution itself, our international relations, and all the protection implied by the nature of the government under the Constitution? . . .

We cannot doubt the power of the President to take measures for the protection of a judge of one of the courts of the United States, who, while in the discharge of the duties of his office, is threatened with a personal attack which may probably result in his death, and we think it clear that where this protection is to be afforded through the civil power, the Department of Justice is the proper one to set in motion the necessary means of protection. The correspondence already recited in this opinion between the marshal of the Northern District of California, and the Attorney Gen-eral, and the district attorney of the United States for that district, although prescribing no very specific mode of affording this protection by the Attorney General, is sufficient, we think, to warrant the marshal in taking the steps which he did take, in making the provisions which he did make, for the protection and defence of Mr. Justice Field. . . .

But all these questions being conceded, it is urged against the relief sought by this writ of habeas corpus, that the question of the guilt of the prisoner of the crime of murder is a question to be determined by the laws of California, and to be decided by its courts, and that there exists no power in the government of the United States to take away the prisoner from the custody of the proper authorities of the State of California and carry him before a judge of the court of the United States, and release him without a trial by jury according to the laws of the State of California. That the statute of the United States authorizes and directs such a proceeding and such a judgment in a case where the offence charged against the prisoner consists in an act done in pursuance of a law of the United States and by virtue of its authority, and where the imprisonment of the party is in violation of the Constitution and laws of the United States, is clear by its express language. . . .

It would seem as if the argument might close here. If the duty of the United States to protect its officers from violence, even to death, in discharge of the duties which its laws impose upon them, be established, and Congress has made the writ of habeas corpus one of the means by which this protection is made efficient, and if the facts of this case show that the prisoner was acting both under the authority of law, and the directions of his superior officers of the Department of Justice, we can see no reason why this writ should not be made to serve its purpose in the present case. . . .

The result at which we have arrived upon this examination is, that in the protection of the person and the life of Mr. Justice Field while in the discharge of his official duties, Neagle was authorized to resist the attack of Terry upon him; that Neagle was correct in the belief that without prompt action on his part the assault of Terry upon the judge would have ended in the death of the latter; that such being his well-founded belief, he was justified in taking the life of Terry, as the only means of preventing the death of the man who was intended to be his victim; that in taking the life of Terry, under the circumstances, he was acting under the authority of the law of the United States, and was justified in so doing; and that he is not liable to answer in the courts of California on account of his part in that transaction.

We therefore affirm the judgment of the Circuit Court authorizing his discharge from the custody of the sheriff of San Joaquin County.