There are no limits to which
powers of privilege will not go
to keep the workers in slavery.
-Mother Jones
Hellraisers Journal, Saturday December 8, 1906
U. S. Supreme Court Rules in Favor of State-Sponsored Kidnapping
The U. S. Supreme Court has ruled that kidnapping is legal as long as it is accomplished by the Governor of a state, or, as in the case of the kidnapping of Haywood, Moyer and Pettibone, done through a conspiracy between the Governors of two states: Colorado and Idaho. The lone voice for actual “law and order” upon the Court was that of Justice McKenna whose dissenting opinion states in part:
Kidnapping is a crime, pure and simple. It is difficult to accomplish; hazardous at every step. All the officers of the law are supposed to be on guard against it. All of the officers of the law may be invoked against it. But how is it when the law becomes the kidnapper?
When the officers of the law, using its forms and exerting its power, become abductors? This is not a distinction without a difference—another form of the crime of kidnapping distinguished only from that committed by an individual by circumstances. If a state may say to one within her borders and upon whom her process is served, I will not inquire how you came here; I must execute my laws and remit you to proceedings against those who have wronged you, may she so plead against her own offenses? May she claim that by mere physical presence within her borders an accused person is within her jurisdiction denuded of his constitutional rights, though he has been brought there by her violence?
[…..]
No individual could have accomplished what the power of the two states accomplished. No individual or individuals could have commanded the means and success could have made two arrests of prominent citizens by invading their homes; could have commanded the resources of jails, armed guards and special trains; could have successfully timed all acts to prevent inquiry and judicial interference. The accused, as soon as he could have done so, submitted his rights to the consideration of the courts. He could not have done so in Colorado. He could not have done so on the way from Colorado. At the first instant that the state of Idaho relaxed its restraining power he invoked the aid of habeas corpus successively of the Supreme Court of the state and of the Circuit Court of the United States. He should not have been dismissed from court, and the action of the Circuit Court in so doing should be reversed.
