Garcia v. Steele, 14315.
| Decision Date | 27 December 1951 |
| Docket Number | No. 14315.,14315. |
| Parties | GARCIA v. STEELE. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Rexford H. Caruthers, St. Louis, Mo. (appointed by the Court), for appellant.
Sam M. Wear, U. S. Atty., and Sam O. Hargus, Asst. U. S. Atty., Kansas City, Mo., submitted brief for appellee.
Before SANBORN, WOODROUGH, and RIDDICK, Circuit Judges.
The question presented by this appeal, prosecuted in forma pauperis, from an order dismissing the appellant's petition for a writ of habeas corpus, is whether a federal prisoner confined in the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners at Springfield, Missouri, who asserts that he is sane and therefore not a suitable subject for hospitalization in that institution, can require the District Court to determine whether his confinement therein is legal and whether he is entitled to be transferred by the Attorney General to some penal or correctional institution.
The question has been admirably and painstakingly briefed and argued on behalf of the appellant by counsel who was appointed by this Court to represent him on this appeal.
The appellant prepared his own petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which was filed January 12, 1951. While the petition is disconnected and informal, it sufficiently shows that the appellant claims to be sane and for that reason an unsuitable subject for confinement among the insane at the Medical Center. The appellant does not attack the legality of his sentence of imprisonment, which was imposed by the District Court of the District of Columbia on July 16, 1948, upon appellant's plea of guilty to a charge of grand larceny. He was transferred, by order of the Attorney General, to the Medical Center from the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, on June 28, 1950, in conformity with § 4241, Title 18 U.S.C. While at Leavenworth he was in the neuro-psychopathic ward of the prison hospital, and upon his arrival at the Medical Center he was placed in a psychopathic ward of that institution. The certificate of the Board of Examiners at the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth, upon which the Attorney General based his order of transfer, is not set out in the petition of the appellant, but a copy of a letter, dated November 24, 1950, from the Clinical Director of the Medical Center to the appellant, which is annexed to his petition, shows that the Board of Examiners at Leavenworth had certified the appellant as being of "unsound mind." Following that certification, the appellant on September 14, 1950, filed a "Petition for a Sanity Hearing" in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia. He asserted in that petition that he had believed himself sane, but that the certificate of the Board of Examiners at Leavenworth indicated that there was probable cause to believe that he was insane when he entered a plea of guilty; and he asked for a hearing to determine his mental competency at the time of his conviction; this pursuant to § 4245, Title 18 U.S.C.
By a letter of December 12, 1950, the Law Clerk of the Honorable Bolitha J. Laws, Chief Judge of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, advised the appellant that Judge Laws had referred his petition to the Director of the Bureau of Prisons for disposition, that a Board of Mental Examiners was convened on November 16, 1950, at the request of the Director, and that the Board had determined that the appellant was sane at the time his plea of guilty was entered.
The Clinical Director of the Medical Center, on November 24, 1950, wrote the appellant as follows:
The last paragraph of this letter refers to the Board of Mental Examiners which on November 16, 1950, found that the appellant was sane when he entered his plea of guilty.
An office memorandum of the Director of the Bureau of Prisons dated December 22, 1950, addressed to the Warden of the Medical Center, with reference to the appellant, reads as follows:
This memorandum also refers to the Board of Mental Examiners convened November 16, 1950.
The District Court permitted the appellant to file his petition for a writ of habeas corpus in forma pauperis, but dismissed it upon the grounds (1) that it...
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