Melville Fuller

“ We reiterate what has so often been said before, that the writ of habeas corpus cannot be used to perform the office of a writ of error or appeal; but when no writ of error or appeal will lie, if a petitioner is imprisoned under a judgment of the circuit court which had no jurisdiction of the person or of the subject-matter, or authority to render the judgment complained of, then relief may be accorded. ”

“ In some of the states, authority to proceed in respect of liquors, without warrant in the first instance, is expressly given by statute, but is accompanied by the provision that when the seizure is so made, the property seized is to be kept in safety for a reasonable time until a warrant can be procured ”

“ The original occasion for securing that immunity may have been the abuse of executive authority in the matter of obtaining evidence of political offenses, but these safeguards are not, therefore, limited in their scope, and extend protection against every exertion in that direction of merely arbitrary power. ”