The appellee Brundage was arrested under a warrant issued by the municipal court of Minneapolis, Minnesota, upon the complaint under oath of the inspector of the State Dairy & Food Department of that state charging him with having violated a statute of Minnesota approved April 19th, 1891, entitled 'An Act to Prevent Fraud in the Sale of Dairy Products, Their Imitations or Substitutes, and to Prohibit and Prevent the Manufacture or Sale of Unhealthy or Adulterated Dairy Products, and to Preserve the Public Health.' Minn. Gen. Laws 1899, chap. 295.
The specific offense charged was that the accused, in the county of Hennepin, Minnesota, 'did wilfully, unlawfully, and wrongfully offer and expose for sale, and have in his possession with intent to sell, a quantity of a certain compound designed to take the place of butter, and made in part from animal and vegetable oils and fats not produced from milk or cream, said compound being an article commonly known as oleomargarine, and being then and there colored with a coloring matter whereby the said article and compound was made to resemble butter, contrary to the statutes in such case made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the state of Minnesota.'
He was adjudged to be guilty and to pay a fine of $25 and costs, or in default thereof to be committed to the workhouse to undergo hard labor for thirty days, unless he sooner paid the fine and costs or was thence discharged by due course of law.
Having been taken into custody in execution of the judgment, Brundage presented his application to the circuit court of the United States for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging that he was restrained of his liberty in violation of the Constitution of the United States. That court held the statute to be unconstitutional, and discharged the accused from the custody of the state authorities.
The state insists, upon this appeal, that the statute, at least in the particulars applicable to this case, was consistent with the Constitution of the United States.
This question is one of great importance, but we do not deem it necessary now to consider it; for in our opinion the circuit court should have denied the application for the writ of habeas corpus, without prejudice to a renewal of the same after the accused had availed himself of such remedies as the laws of the state afforded for a review of the judgment in the state court of which he complains.