In 1879, the Honorable Justice Strong speaking for this Court in Ex pane Commonwealth of Virginia, 100 U.S. 339 (1879), stated that "when a prisoner is held without any lawful authority, and by an order beyond the jurisdiction of an inferior ... court to make, this court will, in favor of liberty, grant the writ, not to review the whole case, but to examine the authority of the court below to act at all." Id. at 343. Today, nearly 150 years after Virginia was decided by this Court, again a question of jurisdiction and deprivation of liberty is before it.

The jurisdictional and constitutional questions presented are:

Whether a person is deprived of their liberty when they are forcefully brought before a court in chains and shackles by the prosecution, the prosecution does not file its timely mandatory and jurisdictional accusatory instrument (complaint, information or indictment) on the court against the person charging him or her with a crime known to law to invoke the court's subject-matter jurisdictional power to act at all and proceed, the court at the prosecution's request places a $10,000.00 cash bond on the person and subsequently the person is convicted in the same course of proceedings where the court lacked jurisdiction at the outset to act at all and proceed thereinafter.

Whether a person is deprived of their liberty when they are forcefully brought before a court in chains and shackles by the prosecution, the prosecution does not file its timely mandatory and jurisdictional accusatory instrument (complaint, information or indictment) on the court against the person charging him or her with a crime known to law to invoke the court's subject-matter jurisdictional power to act at all and proceed