US SUPREME COURT DECISIONS

1. When the bail of a party arrested by order of a state court of one state on information for a crime, and released from custody under his own and his bail's recognizance that he will appear at a day fixed and abide the order and judgment of the court on process from which he has been arrested, have suffered him to go into another state, and while there he is, after the forfeiture of the recognizance, delivered up (under the second section of the fourth article of the Constitution and the Act of February 12, 1793, passed to give effect to it) on the requisition of the governor of a third state for a crime committed (without the knowledge of the bail) in it, and is tried, convicted, and imprisoned in such third state, the bail are not discharged from liability on their recognizance chanrobles.com-red

Page 83 U. S. 367

on suit by the state where the person was first arrested. There has been no such "act of the law" in the case as will discharge bail. The law which renders the performance impossible, and therefore excuses failure, must be a law operative in the state where the obligation was assumed, and obligatory in its effect upon her authorities.

2. The fact that there bas been placed in the hands of the bail, by someone, not the person arrested nor anyone in his behalf, nor so far as the bail knew, with his knowledge, a sum of money equivalent to that for which the bail and himself were bound, has no effect, in a suit against the bail, on the rights of the parties.

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 Constitution [Footnote 1] 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 12, 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 fled, upon proper demand, to cause the fugitive to be arrested and delivered up.