Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

“ An individual is free to refuse his custom to a shop, but a conspiracy to abstain from giving custom might and in some jurisdictions probably would be punished. If the acts conspired for tend to obstruct the due administration of the laws, the statute makes the conspiracy criminal whether the acts themselves are so or not. We do not regard it as open to debate that the withdrawal, by connivance, of a man from an insane asylum, to which he had been committed as Thaw was, did tend to obstruct the due administration of the law. At least, the New York courts may so decide. ”

“ When, as here, the identity of the person, the fact that he is a fugitive from justice, the demand in due form, the indictment by a grand jury for what it and the governor of New York allege to be a crime in that state, and the reasonable possibility that it may be such, all appear, the constitutionally required surrender is not to be interfered with by the summary process of habeas corpus upon speculations as to what ought to be the result of a trial in the place where the Constitution provides for its taking place. ”

“ The inmates of lunatic asylums are largely governed, it has been remarked, by appeal to the same motives that govern other men, and it well might be that a man who was insame and dangerous, nevertheless in many directions understood the nature and quality of his acts as well, and was as open to be affected by the motives of the criminal law as anybody else. ”