Bmoxmrr v. sumsrrr Hmrono 00. 33
Bonn, J .. On the fifteenth of July last J. O. Beckett and George ‘
Peacock nled their petition in this court asking to be relieved from
imprisonment in the jail of Harford county, Maryland, where they
allege they are illegally confined by order of the circuit court of that
county. They allege in their petition that at the time of their ar-
rest they were engaged in executing a writ of replevin issued out of
this court at the suit of H. K. & F. B. Thurber & Co., commanding
the marshal of the United States, of whom they were deputies, to re- J
plevy and deliver to the plaintiffs 3,000 cans of tomatoes mentioned
in the writ of replevin, and that they are now held in custody for
performing their duty in pursuance of that writ.
The sheriff of Harford county makes return to the writ of habeas
corpus, in which he traverses no fact set out by the petition for habeas
corpus, but justifies his holding of the petitioners by virtue of a writ
of attachment issued out of the chancery side of the court of Harford
county, commanding him so to arrest and hold them for the disobe-
dience of a writ of injunction of that court.
It is clear, from the authorities hereafter cited, that a state court
has no jurisdiction to interfere with a marshal of the United States
in his execution of the process of a United States court. If, under a
writ of replevin, as in this case, the marshal, by virtue of the writ,
" seizes property supposed to be that of the defendant, which in reality
is the property of another, it is not within the jurisdiction of the
state court to arrest him for executing the process of the United
States court, but the real owner must come into the United States
court and, by an ancillary process, have his claim to the property
determined against the plaintiff in the suit, in whose behalf the
process of the court has been awarded. It is equally clear that no
court of the United States has the jurisdiction to take into its pos- ,
session property which has been seized and taken into the possession
of a state court by any process of that court. The comity of the
courts forbids any such interference between the one and the other;
but should the case arise, as it might do by inadvertence and the
want of knowledge of the facts on the part of either court, it would
not give the one court or the other the power to arrest and imprison
the officer for obeying the writ. The parties are to seek their rem-
edy in the court whose officer is alleged to have offended, but he can-
not be arrested by any other court of concurrent jurisdiction. He
would be placed in the singular position,—in contempt of one court
for obeying a writ, and of another for not obeying it. In this case,
moreover, the property seized under the writ of replevin was not in
the custody of the state court. `
It is alleged in the return of the sheriff that a certain Thomas J.
Oliver was indebted to certain parties in the sum of $638, and that,
being so indebted, he, on the twenty-fifth of April, 1884, made a deed
of all his property, of every description, to Harlan & Webster, for the
benefit of creditors. There is in the deed no nomination of the
v.21r,no.1—3