In Re Battelle

The petitioner herein applies for release upon a writ of habeas corpus. His application is accompanied with those of eight other applicants who have separately presented petitions, similar in the main, for release from their alleged illegal detention, as a result of certain proceedings affecting all of said applicants and which are sought in each case to be reviewed. On January 17, 1929, the state senate, the California legislature being then in session, adopted a resolution providing for the appointment by the president of the senate of five members thereof for certain purposes and with certain powers hereinafter to be set forth. The resolution itself was preceded by certain recitals which, briefly summarized, provided that, whereas the state of California and its political subdivisions have under way. certain public improvements in the way of the construction of highways, bridges, dams and other structures, certain of which are specifically set forth and which will require the expenditure of large sums of public money; that in the modern construction of such structures cement is one of the elements most used and most largely entering into the cost of such construction ; that the…

I concur in the judgment; also in the splendid outline given of the privileges and powers of a legislative body in search of material for legislative purposes; also in that portion of the opinion which deals with the technical insufficiency of the order of commitment. But I prefer to rest my concurrence mainly upon the ground that in this case the state senate was not pursuing a legislative purpose. Avowedly it was conducting an inquiry into the existence of an unlawful conspiracy in restraint of trade among the cement producers and dealers in the state for the purpose of basing thereon civil and criminal proceedings in the courts to be inaugurated by the attorney-general in the name of the people of the state. This is the plain and unmistakable import of the resolution itself. In fact, in the preamble of the resolution setting on foot the inquiry is found these words:

However, should any doubt occur in the mind of anyone on the matter, it is entirely dispelled by the resolution of commitment, which repeatedly declares the purpose of the investigation to have been “to investigate as to the existence or nonexistence of a reputed illegal combination or conspiracy,” or, as again…