Benjamin N. Cardozo

“ If the judgment and sentence do not authorize his detention, no 'mittimus' will avail to make detention lawful.
The argument is made that there is a practice in the Maryland District to make the commitment broader than the judgment, and that the practice should be given the quality of law. There is no such overriding virtue in usage or tradition. The court speaks through its judgment, and not through any other medium. It is not within the power of a judge by instructions to a clerk to make some other medium the authentic organ of his will. ”

“ Taken at their face value, they fall short of the effect imputed to them. They do not profess to regulate the form or content of the sentence, which is to be recorded by the clerk without addition or amendment. They are aimed at the commitment, at that and nothing else, imparting to it a capacity, a supersedi g virtue, unknown to the law. Something more is needed than a few words of unrecorded talk between a judge and a prothonotary to compass that result.
The refusal to modify the warrant of commitment is not a bar to the relief now prayed by the relator. ”

“ Will haheas corpus lie in one court to correct the commitment of another court which certainly, definitely, and specifically directs the imprisonment of relator for nonpayment of fine and costs on the ground that such provision was inserted by the Clerk, but was not the sentence orally pronounced by the court?'
The payment of a fine imposed by a court of the United States in a criminal prosecution may be enforced by execution against property in like manner as in civil cases. ”