In error to the Supreme Court of Errors of the State of Connecticut; in which court William Taylor, Barnabas Allen, and one Edward McGuire were plaintiffs in error, and Taintor, Treasurer of the State of Connecticut, was defendant in error. The case arose under that clause of the Federal Constitution1 which ordains that 'A person charged in any State with treason, felony, or other crime, who shall flee from justice and be found in another State, shall, on demand of the executive authority of the State from which he fled, be delivered up to be removed to the State having jurisdiction of the crime,' and under the act of Congress passed February 12th, 1793, to carry into effect this provision, and which makes it the duty of the executive of the State or Territory to which a person charged with one of the crimes mentioned has filed, upon proper demand to cause the fugitive to be arrested and the crimes mentioned has fled,

Mr. M. W. Seymour, for the plaintiff in error; Messrs. S. B. Beardsley and N. L. White, contra.

Mr. Justice Swayne stated the facts of the case and delivered the opinion of the court.

This is a writ of error, issued under the 25th section of the Judiciary Act of 1789, to the Supreme Court of Errors of the State of Connecticut.

The attorney of the State for the county of Fairfield presented [83 U.S. 366, 368] to the Superior Court for that county, at the August term, 1866, an information charging Edward McGuire with the crime of grand larceny. A bench warrant, returnable to the same term, was thereupon issued. McGuire was arrested and held in custody. The court fixed the amount of bail to be given at $8000. On the 24th of September, 1866, McGuire and the other plaintiffs in error entered into a recognizance to the defendant in error in that sum, conditioned that McGuire should appear before the Superior Court, to be held at Danbury, in Fairfield County, on the third Tuesday of October, 1866, to answer to the information before mentioned, and abide the order and judgment of the court. McGuire was thereupon released from custody. He failed to appear according to the condition of the recognizance, and it was duly forfeited on the 16th of October, 1866.

This suit was thereupon instituted in the Superior Court of Fairfield County to recover the amount of the obligation. The facts developed at the trial, and relied upon by the defendants to defeat the action were, according to the practice in that State, found and certified by the court, and became a part of the record. So far as it is necessary to state them, they are as follows:

After the recognizance was entered into McGuire went into the State of New York, where he belonged. While there, upon a requisition from the governor of Maine upon the governor of New York, he was seized by the legal officers of New York, and was by them forthwith, on the 19th of October, 1866, delivered over to the proper officers of the State of Maine, by whom he was immediately and against his will removed to that State. The requisition charged a burglary alleged to have been committed by McGuire in Maine before the recognizance in question in this case was taken. At the time of the forfeiture of the recognizance McGuire was, and he has been ever since, legally imprisoned in Maine. In June, 1867, he was tried there for the burglary charged in the requisition, and convicted and sentenced to confinement in the penitentiary for fifteen years, [83 U.S. 366, 369] and was, at the time of the trial of this case in the court below, serving out his time under that sentence. Neither of the sureties knew, when they entered into the recognizance, that there was any charge of crime against McGuire other than the one alleged in the information in Connecticut. If the testimony were admissible, the plaintiff proved that the sum of $8000 was placed in the hands of the sureties to indemnify them against the liability they assumed, and if the testimony were admissible, the sureties proved that the money was not placed in their hands by McGuire nor by any one in his behalf; and that, so far as the sureties knew, it was done without his knowledge. Read more about this landmark ruling here

This was an action of trespass, assault, and battery, and for false imprisonment. The defendant pleaded the general issue, with liberty to give in evidence and matter of justification.At the trial, at the last Greene circuit, the following facts appeared in evidence.

At a circuit court, held at New Haven, in the state of Connecticut, the third Tuesday of March, 1803, P. Edwards became special bail for Nicolls (the present Plaintiff) in a suit brought against him in that court, by M. Hotchkiss. The recognizance of bail was as follows: "At a county court, held, &c. Be it remembered that in the above action, the parties appeared in court, and before plea pleaded, the defendant and Pierpoint Edwards acknowledged themselves bound to the plaintiff, in a recognizance of 500 dollars, as special bail for the defendant, conditioned that the said defendant should abide the final judgement that should be given in the said cause." A copy of the recognizance or bail piece was certified by the clerk of the court, on the first of October, 1808, to which the seal of the court was also affixed; and a certificate of one of the judges of the court was endorsed, certifying that the clerk who signed the certified copy of the recognizance, "was a clerk of the court, and keeper of the records,, and that full faith and credit ought to be given to such certificate, which was in due form." Upon the same paper was written a power from P. Edwards, dated the fifth of October, 1808, under his hand and seal, as follows: "Know all men that I, P. Edwards, of, &c, being the same Pierpoint Edwards in the annexed copy of a bail-piece named and mentioned, have deputized, authorized and empowered, in my place and stead, and in my behalf, Joseph Wilcox, of K., &c., marshal of the district of Connecticut, to take, arrest, seize and surrender to the sheriff of the county of New Haven, in said state, John Nicolls, in said copy of a bail piece hereunto annexed named, in exoneration and discharge of my recognizance aforesaid, as special bail for the said Nicolls, in said cause; and to employ such persons and assistants as may be necessary to effect such purpose.

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