The Jailhouse Blunder in Seattle
A man was locked away for a week without due process, exposing deep incompetence in the administration of territorial justice.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
Last Sunday night a week ago, a man calling himself G. W. Harmon arrived in this city and stopped at the American House, on Mill street. While there, he was recognized by a Mr. Perkins from Oregon as a fugitive from justice named Sevier Lewis, who had been indicted by the grand jury of Coos County, Oregon, for murder. Mr. Perkins notified the sheriff of this county, who arrested Harmon and confined him in the county jail. During the week, a writ of habeas corpus was issued by the judge of this district, now residing in Port Townsend, to determine if there was sufficient evidence to warrant the delivery of the prisoner to Sheriff Eakin of Lane County, Oregon. In order to avoid the expense of travel, the case was brought before Justice Andrews. The prisoner was identified and turned over to Sheriff Eakin. During the examination, a startling fact was developed: the administrators of justice in our Territory are criminally ignorant of the law. The statutes require that an accused party must immediately be taken before a justice of the peace to determine if there is evidence of crime before being committed to jail. Instead, Harmon was arrested on the mere word of another party and held for a week without a legal hearing. Furthermore, the Territorial statutes require that the Governor must notify the Prosecuting Attorney to examine the facts before issuing a warrant. Governor Ferry ignored this, issuing a warrant based solely on the requisition from the Governor of Oregon. It is necessary that those entrusted with justice be conversant with the law so that the liberties of citizens are not imperiled by ignorance.
“It will be seen from the above how necessary it is that those intrusted with the administration of justice should be thoroughly conversant with the law, in order that the liberties of the citizen should not be imperiled through their ignorance.”
This 1877 account of a 'fugitive' held without legal review highlights the enduring friction between executive power and the due process rights of the accused in Washington—a tension that persists in modern debates over police discretion and local justice systems.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.