In Re Travers

I dissent. The undisputed facts are that petitioner was arrested on a charge of vagrancy, was taken from her place of abode to the police court where she pleaded not guilty, and, without trial or judgment, was ordered into the custody of the health officer. She was then taken to the city and county hospital where, in direct defiance of a penal statute, she was subjected to a medical examination by an unlicensed employee illegally styling himself a doctor. As a result of such examination she was ordered confined in the city and county hospital for an indefinite period and was so detained without xvarrant or judicial commitment when released on bail by order of this court.

The poAver to quarantine diseased persons for the purpost of preventing the spread of communicable diseases need not be questioned. The power to imprison a citizen in a public hospital without trial or commitment is obnoxious to every American principle of right and justice. It is one of the fxxndamental principles of both our federal and state constitutions that no person shall be “deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.” “It is a rule as old as the laxv, and never more to be respected…

On the petition of her attorney, a writ of habeas corpus in this matter was made returnable to this court. The petition, which was lengthy, and need not be set forth, was based upon the alleged facts that Evelyn Travers was imprisoned by the health officer of the city and county of San Francisco, in a certain ward of the city and county hospital, on the pretense that she was infected with a certain specific disease, that she was not examined by a licensed physician, and that she was examined against her consent. It was further alleged that she was arrested while on her way to her home, without warrant or cause, by a peace officer, that she was discharged by the police court on the following morning, and that she was examined by a doctor while she was under duress produced by threats that she would be convicted of vagrancy and sentenced to the county jail unless she consented to the examination. It was alleged also that she was not suffering from the particular disease mentioned in the petition nor from any other contagious or infectious disease, that the state board of health nor its secretary had not taken control of the case, nor caused her restraint in the hospital to prevent…