Standard Oil Co. of N.J. v. United States, 267 U.S. 76 (1925)

In defense it is argued that the proximate cause was a marine peril not covered by the policies and that the decision should be governed by Morgan v. United States, 14 Wall. 531; Queen Insurance Co. v. Globe & Rutgers Fire Ins. Co., 263 U. S. 487, and other similar cases. But in those very strict applications of a well-known rule, however strong the motives of the insured or owners for acting as they did, the loss ensued upon their own conduct. But if a vessel should be taken from an owner’s hands without his consent and should be lost while thus held by a paramount power, obviously a company that had insured p. 78against such a taking could not look beyond and attribute the loss to a peril of the sea. Whatever happens while the taking insured against continues fairly may be attributed to the taking. That is a nonconductor between the insured and subsequent events. See Muller v. Globe & Rutgers Fire Ins. Co., 246 Fed. 759, 763. Cory v. Burr, 8 App. Cas. 393, 398. Andersen v. Marten, [1908] A. C. 334.

The Llama at the time of the accident was under the paramount control and in the possession of the Virginia. We regard the differences between the testimony of the British officer and that of the master of the Llama as immaterial. The master, who was believed in the District Court, makes the intervention of the British lieutenant frequent, active, and the cause of a change of the course that the ship otherwise would have taken. But whether the intervention was more or less, if by mutual understanding, after a manifestation of armed force, the last word was with the lieutenant, it does not matter whether he uttered his commands often or rarely. The lieutenant while denying that he had a general charge of the navigation testifies again and again to facts that show that he assumed and was recognized to be the ultimate power. After his signalling his ship the master, he says, asked him if he could proceed “ So I said, ‘ Yes.’ ” He looked at the course to see that it complied with the orders from his captain. “ The captain approached me and asked my permission to go through the Westray Firth ... I gave my consent.” If the captain had suggested a course that the lieutenant did not approve, the latter said he assumed that he had power to correct it. He recognized that the vessel might possibly be the subject of prize court proceedings. Some comment was made upon the meagreness of the entries in the log as to any control of the master’s conduct. But after an entry 1 British naval officer boarded ship with prize crew’ nothing more was necessary to show what the master understood his position p. 79to be, whether in fact the crew was a prize crew or not. As was said of similar facts in Muller v. Globe & Rutgers Fire Ins. Co., 246 Fed. 759, 762, that the vessel and her cargo were seized, arrested and detained within the meaning of the policy we think too plain to require much more than mention. It no more mattered that the master took an active part in the navigation than that the ship still was steered by one of the crew.

Second. It is urged that the decision of the federal district court in Connecticut discharging Harry F. Morse was res judicata and conclusively determined (1) that the New York bench warrant was illegally issued and therefore could not be made the basis for the subsequent arrest in New York; and (2) that the indictment was fatally defective. In respect of the first contention, it is enough to say that the warrant upon which the Connecticut arrest was made was that issued by the commissioner and not the New York bench warrant upon which the present arrest was made. The discharge of the prisoner determined that he could not be held upon the process issued by the commissioner. It had nothing to do with the question whether he could be arrested and held in New York p. 83upon the process issued by the trial court. See Ex parte Milburn, 9 Pet. 704, 710; Barbee v. Weatherspoon, 88 N. C. 19, 20-22; In re Begerow, 136 Cal. 293, 299.

“ While we have no desire to minimize what we have already said with regard to the indictment setting out the substance of the offense in language sufficient to apprise p. 84the accused of the nature of the charge against him, still it must be borne in mind that the indictment is merely offered as proof of the charge originally contained in the complaint, and not as a complaint in itself or foundation of the charge, which may be supported by oral testimony as well as by the indictment. When the accused is arraigned in the trial court he may take advantage of every insufficiency in the indictment, since it is there the very foundation of the charge, but to hold it to be the duty of the Commissioner to determine the validity of every indictment as a pleading, when offered only as evidence, is to put in his hands a dangerous power, which might be subject to serious abuse. If, for instance, he were moved by personal considerations, popular clamor or insufficient knowledge of the law to discharge the accused by reason of the insufficiency of the indictment, it might turn out that the indictment was perfectly valid and that the accused should have been held. But the evil once done is, or may be, irremediable, and the Commissioner, in setting himself up as a court of last resort to determine the validity of the indictment, is liable to do a gross injustice.”

See also Benson n . Palmer, supra; United States v. Reddin, 193 Fed. 798, 802; In re Hacker, 73 Fed. 464; In re Dana, 68 Fed. 886, 890; Ex parte Mitchell, 1 La. Ann. 413, 414. Benson v. Palmer, supra, contains a very full review of the precise question here under consideration. In the course of the opinion, the court, after pointing out that the discharge of the accused from the process under which he was held in the removal proceedings had nothing to do with the process upon which he was subsequently arrested and held by the trial court, that the indictment could be considered in such proceedings only as evidence, and that a finding thereon “concludes the proceedings for removal, but not for trial,” said (p. 568): 11 It is not the policy of our criminal jurisprudence that an accused shall be permitted to escape trial on the merits of the p. 85charge against him, through a mere defect in the preliminary proceedings leading up to the trial. No discharge by writ of habeas corpus will operate as a bar to further proceedings in the same cause, unless the inquiry on the petition for writ involves a full investigation into the merits of the case,—the guilt or innocence of the accused.” It is unnecessary to refer to other authorities. While they are not entirely harmonious the rule to be deduced therefrom is that the judgment in a habeas corpus proceeding can be regarded as conclusive upon the merits only where the case presented is one which calls for a final determination of the ultimate facts and of the law; and not where the proceeding is preliminary and ancillary to a trial upon the merits. See, for example, United States v. Chung Shee, 71 Fed. 277, 280; Kurtz v. State, 22 Fla. 36, 45. Thus it is held that a judgment in a preliminary examination discharging an accused person for want of probable cause is not conclusive upon the question of his guilt or innocence and constitutes no bar to a subsequent trial in the court to which the indictment is returned. Commonwealth v. Hamilton, 129 Mass. 479, 481. Likewise, in extradition proceedings, a discharge for insufficient evidence will not preclude a second inquiry. In re Kelly, 26 Fed. 852. And see Collins v. Loisel, 262 U. S. 426, 429; In re Begerow, supra, p. 298. The functions of the commissioner and the court in removal proceedings under § 1014 are of like character and exercised with like effect. The judgment rendered therein, whatever may be its effect in subsequent proceedings of the same character involving the same question—Salinger v. Loisel, 265 U. S. 224, 230-232; Collins v. Loisel, supra, p. 430; United States v. Haas, 167 Fed. 211, 212—does not abridge the power of the trial court to deal independently with the main cause if the accused be subsequently arrested and brought before that court to answer to the indictment. In other words, the commissioner, or the court in review on habeas corpus, for p. 86lack of power cannot conclusively adjudge the indictment, qua indictment, to be either good or bad or pass finally upon the guilt or innocence of the accused. A decision discharging the prisoner neither annuls the indictment nor blots out the'offence. Upon the case here presented, the trial court alone had plenary jurisdiction over the cause and consequently alone had plenary power to pass upon the sufficiency of the indictment as the pleading which initiated and was the foundation of the prosecution.