OCR Text |
Show THE LEGAL STATUS OF TELEGRAMS. The question of the inviolability of telegrams has been brought into notice again through a decision of the Supreme Court of Missouri. It will be remembered what interest attached to this question in the exciting period following the election in 1876, in consequences of the position taken by the late Mr. Orton. Nor was the matter judged to be determined, though the judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives gave their opinion that there was no limitation in the power of Congress to compel the production of any or all messages in the possession of a telegraph company. Under the authority of that holding, the St. Louis Court of Appeals, two years later, ruled that a Court had equal right with Congress to call for the production of telegrams; and again the telegraph company refused to recognize that right, and carried the case up to the Supreme Court. THE decision now given is a qualified decision. Where the Court of Appeals hold to an unlimited power over any and all telegrams, whether distinctly specified or not, the higher court declares that such a wholesale ruling would be an unconstitutional interference with the private rights of citizens. Taking the case in question, for instance, the subpoena which the manager of the Western Union Company at St.Louis refused to obey called for the production of all the messages which had passed between a dozen or more parties during a period of six months. There were no specifications as to particular telegrams; and the Supreme Court says with a force that must strike every business man "To permit an indiscriminate search among all the papers in one's possession for no particular paper, but some paper which may throw some light on some issue involved in the trial of some cause pending, would lead to consequences that can be contemplated only with horror, and such a process is not to be tolerated among free people." ON the other hand, the decision is equally far from the extreme position maintained by the telegraph companies, that telegrams are as inviolable as letters, and that to compel their production in the Courts is equivalent to a seizure of private papers, and hence unconstitutional. For the very reason of its striking the mean between the extremes, this decision is likely to have greater weight as a precedent. The Court holds that telegrams are not entirely beyond the reach of judicial process, not entitled to be classed as private papers, in the meaning of the Constitution; that they may properly be demanded when they form material evidence in a case at law. But - and it is an important but - the needed telegrams must be specified with reasonable precision before their production can be enforced. In other words, the counsel [illegible word or words] telegrams must know what telegrams [illegible words], and not do so until [illegible words] what evidence he can pick out of whole bundle of them. Between these two things there is a vast distinction, and one that few men will question. THIS decision affects the question only so far as it relates to the people of Missouri, but it adds to the interest of it everywhere, and renders more urgent the desirability and need of a uniform law, so that both companies and citizens alike in every part of the land may know what their rights in the matter are. - N.Y Examiner. |