John D. Duncan v. Paul J. Madigan, Warden, United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz, California

Appellant, convicted of a criminal offense in a court of the State of Maine, is a prisoner at Alcatraz federal prison where he is held pursuant to a contract between that state and the United States, executed under the authority of 18 U.S.C. § 5003 , which provides in pertinent part as follows:

A Maine statute authorized the appropriate state officers to contract with the Attorney General of the United States for the care, custody, subsistence, education, treatment and training of certain prisoners of the state. § 32-A, Ch. 27, Revised Statutes of Maine.

Appellant attacked his detention by the appellee Warden by petition for habeas corpus which was denied in the court below. On this appeal he does not question the fact that he comes within the terms of the Maine statute, but he asserts (1) that § 5003, supra, by its terms, applies only to youthful offenders, and (2) that that section is void and unconstitutional as beyond the delegated powers of the federal government.

We reject both contentions. It is true that after § 5003 was first enacted in 1952 as Chapter 253, Public Law 333, it found its way into Title 18 as § 5003, not far from § 5001, relating to persons under…