Strait v. Beall

Collins, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This is an application for leave to appeal from the refusal of a writ of habeas corpus by Judge J. Dudley Digges. Petitioner alleges that his sole cause of detention is a bench warrant issued out of the Circuit Court for Prince George’s County “on an indictment returned by the Grand Jury for said County on the 10th day of April, 1951, charging appellant with the crimes of rape, assault with intent to rape and assault and battery. The sole question presented is whether said indictment is void, and the appellant should be released from custody because the only evidence upon which the indictment was found was received from witnesses who were not sworn in open Court or in the presence of the Court or in the presence of one of the Judges thereof. * * * Said witnesses, before testifying were sworn by one of the deputy clerks of the Court in a room widely separated from each of the Circuit Court rooms, and out of the presence of the Court and all the Judges thereof, and out of the presence of the Clerk’s docket”.

Petitioner has not yet been tried on the indictment. Petitioner contends that the grand jury finding the indictment had no jurisdiction and the Court has no jurisdiction of the petitioner as the result of the bench warrant and indictment so found. This is not a jurisdictional question. The subject of jurisdiction was recently fully discussed by this Court in the case of Lambros v. Brown, 184 Md. 350 .

See also Berlinsky v. Eisenberg, 190 Md. 636, 638 . It was said by the Supreme Court of the United States in the majority opinion in Sunal v. Large, 332 U. S. 174 , 67 S. Ct. 1588 : “It is plain, however, that the writ [habeas corpus] is not designed for collateral review of errors of law committed by the trial ⁶⁷⁹ court — the existence of any evidence to support the conviction, irregularities in the grand jury procedure, departure from a statutory grant of time in which to prepare for trial, and other errors in trial procedure which do not cross the jurisdictional line. Cf. Craig v. Hecht, 263 U. S. 255 , 44 S. Ct. 403 , 68 L. Ed.