Mayor of Baltimore v. County Commissioners

Stone, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is a suit brought by the Commissioners of Howard County against the Mayor and City Council of Baltimore, to recover the expenses paid by Howard County for the trial, &c., of Bell, a prisoner removed from Baltimore to Howard County for trial. This case was tried upon an agreed statement of facts. The account in dispute consists of three items, one of $40, for bringing Bell from Baltimore City to Howard County; another of $25, for carrying him to the penitentiary after his conviction ; and the third item is $248, for an extra guard employed at $2.50 a day, for guarding the prisoner while in jail at Ellicott City, after he was found guilty by the jury and when an appeal was pending.

Baltimore City objects to the item of $40 upon two grounds, 1st. That it was not the duty of the sheriff of Howard County to go to the city and carry the prisoner to Howard County; and 2nd. That the charge was unreasonable and excessive. The statute does not designate which sheriff should make the removal of the prisoner, but as it says a prisoner shall not be removed until the first day of the session of the Court to tvhich the case has been removed, and as the sheriff of the county where the case is to be tried would be presumed to be especially cognizant of that day, the removal by him would seem to be appropriate, and we think he is the proper one to make such removal.

As to the second objection, that the charge is excessive and unreasonable, there is no evidence whatever in the record that the charge is excessive or unreasonable. The case was tried below upon an agreed statement of facts, and there is not a particle of proof that the amount so paid was unreasonable. We do not know what trouble or risk this removal may have cost the sheriff, or what as ³²⁸ sistance it was ■ necessary for him to employ to remove safely a prisoner whose character was so desperate as that which the record does disclose was the character of Bell. But apart from this, the Commissioners of Howard County must be presumed to have examined - into all the circumstances, and to have acted fairly both toward the sheriff and the community.

They certainly have the power, in the absence of any statute regulating it, to allow the sheriff a reasonable sum for the performance of such a duty. When, therefore, they determined, with their knowledge of all the circumstances of the case, that $>40 was a fair and reasonable allowance, it would require clear and positive proof' to the contrary to authorize this Court to reverse their judgment, much less