Home > Great American Court Cases > Ex Parte Siebold

Legal Citation: 100 U.S. 371 (1880)

Petitioners
Albert Siebold, Walter Tucker, Martin C. Burns, Lewis Coleman, Henry Bowers

Respondent
State of Maryland

Petitioners' Claim
The petitioners were all election judges from Baltimore who had been convicted in federal court and subsequently sentenced to prison for stuffing ballot boxes and related incidents of election fraud in a congressional election in Maryland. They sought a writ of habeas corpus "to be relieved from imprisonment" on the grounds that Congress had no power to punish state officials for violating the laws of their own state.

Chief Lawyer for Petitioners
Bradley T. Johnson

Chief Lawyer for Appellant
Charles Devens, U.S. Attorney General

Justices for the Court
Joseph P. Bradley (writing for the Court), John Marshall Harlan I, Ward Hunt, Samuel Freeman...