UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT.--Judge Kane.--U. S. Marshals Arrested.--About ten months since, Deputies U. S. Marshals John Jenkins, Geo. Wynkoop and Jas. Crossen, proceeded to Wilkesbarre, to arrest an alleged fugitive slave named Bill Thomas, who resisted them, and received considerable injury at their hands. The slave escaped by means of the river, into which he plunged, and has not since been heard of. The case excited a great deal of feeling at the time, and several prosecutions against the United States officers have grown out of it, the last of which was before the Court on 13th ult., in the shape of a habeas corpus, in which the officers above named asked to be discharged from the custody of Sheriff Allen, of Philadelphia county, who is alleged to have restrained them from their liberty.
    The Sheriff, through his counsel, Isaac Hazelhurst, answered--that the relators were restrained of their liberty, by virtue of a bench warrant issued out of the Quarter Sessions, of Luzerne county, by John N. Conyngham, President Judge of that Court, dated Feb. 5th, 1854, and countersigned by Oswald Thompson, President Judge of the Quarter Session, of Philada. co.
    There was considerable preparatory skirmishing before the gist of the matter was arrived at. The bench warrant, under which the relators are held, recites that the relators named are charged with "divers felonies" committed in Luzerne county, when in reality they are indicted for a misdemeanor--an assault and battery on Bill Thomas, with an intent to kill.
    Mr. Jackson, for the prosecution, admitted that the warrant erroneously set forth the offence, and offered to amend it, so as to recite the real offence.
    Judge Kane said--that he could know only of the offence charged in the warrant held by the Sheriff, which had the seal of the Court of Luzerne county attached. He would now hear anything counsel had to say in reference to the charge in the warrant, and if it became necessary, for the purpose of justice, hereafter to amend the warrant, he would consider the question.
    U. S. District Attorney Ashmead, for the relators, said that the Grand Jury of Luzerne county had found a true bill against the relators, for an assault and battery on Bill Thomas, with an intent to kill him, on the same state of facts on which they had been previously discharged by Judge Grier, of the U. S. Circuit Court. Wm. C. Gildersleeve was the prosecutor in the original suit, and Wm. C. Gildersleeve is upon the back of the indictment found in Luzerne county as the prosecutor.
    Mr. Jackson stated that the suit in Luzerne was based upon the same transaction, but there was this difference--a prima facie case had not been made out before Judge Grier. The Grand Jury of Luzerne, acting subsequently upon the matter, had had a prima facie case before them, upon which they found a true bill.
    Mr. Ashmead replied, that if the Court was determined to hear proof, he would ask for a postponement until he could procure the proof in Luzerne county; but if the matter was to be argued upon a bare question of law, he was prepared to go on. Judge Grier had discharged the relators from the warrant issued by the magistrate in a criminal suit, and Judge Kane had discharged them, subsequently, for the capia issued in a civil suit. Now they are arrested again on the criminal charge growing out of the same transaction.
    Mr. Jackson admitted that the only proof he had was that taken before the Court in Philadelphia. He had prepared himself to argue the matter upon a pure question of law, namely, whether this Court could take cognizance of the case after a true bill had been found against the relators in Luzerne county.
    The subject was then [fold in paper-chw] morning of the 4th inst. when the question of [fold in paper-chw] Grand Jury in Luzerne county, against U. S. Deputies Jenkins, Wynkoop and Crossen, for an assault and battery with an intent to kill Bill Thomas, an alleged fugitive slave, was argued by Messrs. D. P. Brown and W. Jackson for the prosecutor, and by District Attorney J. W. Ashmead, contra. Judge Kane will deliver an opinion in the case in a few days.

Source:

Unknown, "Wilkes-Barre Slave Case," The Luzerne Union, Wilkes-Barre, Pa., Wednesday, 10 May 1854, page 2, col. 3.