End date 1891 | ||
Full case name Ross v. McIntyre, Superintendent of the Penitentiary of the State of New York at Albany Citations 140 U.S. 453 (more)
11 S. Ct. 897; 35 L. Ed. 581; 1891 U.S. LEXIS 2479 People also search for Reid v. Covert, Downes v. Bidwell | ||
In re Ross or Ross v. McIntyre, 140 U.S. 453 (1891), was a United States Supreme Court case decided on May 21, 1891. It dealt with the application of US law by United States consular courts over foreign sailors on US-flagged ships in countries where the United States exercised extraterritorial jurisdiction.
John M. Ross, a Canadian sailor on the American ship Bullion, was convicted in the US consular court in Yokohama of murder on the ship while it was in Yokohama before the US consul general at Kanagawa, Thomas van Buren. He was sentenced to death, but President Rutherford B. Hayes commuted the sentence to a life sentence of hard labor at Albany penitentiary. Although Ross accepted the commutation, he later sought a writ of habeas corpus for his release on the grounds that having been born on Prince Edward Island he was a British subject and so not subject to the jurisdiction of an American Consular Court.
The Supreme Court upheld the jurisdiction of the court on the basis that having enrolled on a United States ship he became subject to the jurisdiction of United States courts.