CASES AT LAW,
ARGUED AND DETERMINED
IN THE
SUPREME COURT OF NORTH CAROLINA,
AT RALEIGH.
JUNE TERM, 1863.
IN THE MATTER OF J. C. BRYAN.*
HABEAS CORPUS.
The
Courts and Judges of the States have concurrent jurisdiction with the
Courts and Judges of the Confederate States in the issuing of writs of habeas corpus,
and in the enquiring into the causes of detention, even where such
detention is by an officer or agent of the Confederate States.
The
courts of this State, as well as the individual Judges, have
jurisdiction to issue writs of habeas corpus and to have the return made to them in term time and, as a court, to consider and determine of the causes of detention.
A
person liable to military service, as a conscript, under the Act of
Congress of April, 1862, and who, by virtue of the 9th section of the
act, regularly procured a discharge by furnishing a proper substitute,
cannot again be enrolled as a conscript under the act of September,
1862.
*
Judge MANLY was absent during the greater part of the term on account
of sickness, and did not participate in the consideration of any of the
cases of habeas corpus decided at this term.
Page 2
Bryan,
the applicant, petitioned to the Supreme Court, at the present term,
for a writ of HABEAS CORPUS, alleging that, being between the ages of
eighteen and thirty-five years, he procured a substitute, who was duly
received by Peter Mallett, then Major in command of the
conscript camp, near Raleigh, and the chief enrolling officer of the
State, and that the said Major Peter Mallett, on the 29th day of July,
1862, gave him a discharge for the war; that the age of the said
substitute was thirty-nine years; that on the 16th day of June, 1863,
he was arrested as a conscript, and was at the date of his petition in
the custody of Lieut. J. D. H. Young, of Franklin county, as a
conscript, under the second law for raising conscripts, (September,
1862,) and that the said Lieut. Young is about to carry him to Camp
Holmes, a rendezvous for conscripts, near the city of Raleigh. The
prayer of the petition is for a writ of habeas corpus, to
enquire into the cause of detention of the said J. C. Bryan and for a
discharge. The Court ordered the writ, which was accordingly issued by
the clerk, and was returned with this endorsement: "I accept the
service of this writ and return for answer: that the facts set forth in
the petition are substantially true, and that I arrested him by an
order of the enrolling officer for 5th congressional district.
J. D. H. YOUNG,
Lieut. 40th Reg't. N. C. Militia."
On
the return of the writ a day was given in Court for the hearing of the
case, and as a preliminary to the consideration of the facts stated in
the petition, the Court requested arguments from gentlemen present, on
the question, whether this Court and the other courts of superior
jurisdiction and the Judges individually of this State, have
jurisdiction to issue writs of habeas corpus, and to consider
the causes of detention, where the imprisonment or detention was under
the authority of the Confederate Government. Thereupon,
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