During this period in spring 1861, Baltimore Mayor Brown, the city council, the police commissioner, and the entire Board of Police, were arrested and imprisoned at Fort McHenry without charges. One of those arrested was militia captain John Merryman, who was held without trial in defiance of a writ of "habeas corpus" on May 25, sparking the case of "Ex parte Merryman", heard just 2 days later on May 27 and 28. In this case U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice, and native Marylander, Roger B. Taney, acting as a federal circuit court judge, ruled that the arrest of Merryman was unconstitutional without Congressional authorization, which Lincoln could not then secure: