Wharton v. Wise

Wharton v. Wise
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued March 5–6, 1894 Decided April 23, 1894
Full case name	Wharton v. Wise
Citations	153 U.S. 155 (more) 14 S. Ct. 783; 38 L. Ed. 669
Holding
Writ of habeas corpus is denied; a Maryland citizen's right to fish in Pocomoke Sound is not protected by the Compact of 1785 between Maryland and Virginia, and the compact does not prohibit Virginia from trying a citizen of Maryland for crimes committed in the area covered by the compact.
Court membership
Case opinions
Majority	Field, joined by Fuller, Harlan, Gray, Brewer, Brown, Shiras, Jackson, White

Wharton v. Wise, 153 U.S. 155 (1894) is a 9-to-0 ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States, which denied a citizen of the state of Maryland a writ of habeas corpus. The appellant, tried and convicted of illegally harvesting oysters from Pocomoke Sound in the Chesapeake Bay, had argued that his right to fish was protected by an interstate compact and that this compact also barred the state of Virginia from trying him. The Supreme Court disagreed on both counts.

The states and citizens of Maryland and Virginia had long disputed who had rights to fish in the mouth of the Pocomoke River (known as "Pocomoke Sound") where it emptied into Chesapeake Bay. Maryland occupied the sound's northern side, while Virginia occupied its southern side. In 1785, the two states entered into a compact, which declared Pocomoke Sound, the Potomac River (which they also shared as a common border), and the Chesapeake Bay a common waterway, and each state pledged not to interfere with the other's water-borne traffic via tax, duty, prohibition, or restraint. The seventh clause of the Compact of 1785 provided that "the right of fishing in the [Potomac River] shall be common to and equally enjoyed by the citizens of both states, provided that such common right be not exercised by the citizens of the one state to the hindrance or disturbance of the fisheries on the shores of the other state, and that the citizens of neither state shall have a right to fish with nets or seines on the shores of the other." The eighth clause addressed both the Potomac and Pocomoke Rivers, and provided that all "laws and regulations which may be necessary for the preservation of fish, or for the performance of quarantine in the River Potowmack, or for preserving and keeping open the channel and navigation thereof, or of the River Pocomoke, within the limits of Virginia, by preventing the throwing out ballast or giving any other obstruction thereto, shall be made with the mutual consent and approbation of both states." Under the compact's tenth clause, crimes committed on these common waterways were to be tried thusly: Virginians committing offenses against Marylanders should be tried in Maryland courts, Marylanders committing offenses against Virginians should be tried in Virginian courts, and citizens of neither state committing crimes against either Marylanders or Virginians should be tried in Virginian courts.