Ex parte Lee

• Citation: 27 So.2d 147,248 Ala. 246
• Decision Date: 27 June 1946
• Docket Number: 4 Div. 398.
• Court: Supreme Court of Alabama
• Parties: Ex parte LEE.

27 So.2d 147

248 Ala. 246

Ex parte LEE.

4 Div. 398.

Supreme Court of Alabama

June 27, 1946

Rehearing Denied Aug. 2, 1946.

C. L. Hybart and R. L. Jones, both of Monroeville for petitioner.

Wm N. McQueen, Atty. Gen., and John O. Harris, Asst. Atty. Gen for the State.

LIVINGSTON Justice.

This is a petition by Huey R. Lee, Jr., by his next friend L. D. Turberville, for leave to petition the Circuit Court of Barbour County, Alabama, where he was convicted of murder in the first degree, and sentenced to life imprisonment, for a writ of error coram nobis to review that judgment. The judgment of conviction having been here affirmed (Lee v. State, 246 Ala. 343, 20 So.2d 471), the procedure is proper. Johnson v. Williams, 244 Ala. 391, 13 So.2d 383, 686.

As stated in Johnson v. Williams, supra, such application should make an adequate showing of the substantiality of the petitioner's claim to the satisfaction of this Court: a mere naked allegation that a constitutional right has been invaded will not suffice. The application should make a full disclosure of the specific facts relied upon, and not merely conclusions as to the nature and effect of such facts. The proof must enable this Court to 'ascertain whether under settled principles pertaining to such writ the facts alleged would afford at least 'prima facie just grounds for an application to the lower court for a writ of error coram nobis.' And in the exercise of our discretion in matters of this character, this Court should look to the reasonableness of the allegations of the petition and to the existence of the probability of the truth thereof. The Supreme Court of the United States in Hysler v. State of Florida, 315 U.S. 411 , 62 S.Ct. 688, 691, 86 L.Ed. 932, said that 'each state may decide for itself, whether, after guilt has been determined by the ordinary processes of trial and affirmed on appeal, a later challenge to its essential justice must come in the first instance, or even in the last instance, before a bench of judges rather than before a jury', and that the procedure outlined above, which we have adopted from the Florida Court, meets the requirements of the due process clause of the Constitution.'

We take it that the petition, together with the State's answer, establish the following facts:

Huey R Lee, Jr., was indicted, tried and convicted in the Circuit Court of Barbour County, Alabama, Clayton Division, on the charge of having murdered his father, Huey R. Lee, Sr., and sentenced to be imprisoned in the penitentiary of Alabama for a term of his natural life. An appeal was prosecuted to this Court where the judgment of the circuit court was affirmed. See, 20 So.2d 471. Huey R. Lee, Sr., was killed on either the 5th or 6th day of July, 1942. On July 20, 1942, and under and by virtue of the provisions of section 426, Title 15, Code of 1940, an inquisition as to the sanity of Huey R. Lee, Jr., was tried by a jury in the Circuit Court of Barbour County, in which proceedings the Hon. J. S. Williams, judge of said court, presided. The jury returned the following verdict: 'We the jury find the defendant to be sane.' Thereafter, on the 20th day of October, 1942, the grand jury of Barbour County returned an indictment against Huey R. Lee, Jr., charging him with murder in the first degree. On October 22, 1942, the sheriff of Barbour County reported to the Hon. J. S. Williams, judge of the Circuit Court of Barbour County, that Huey R. Lee, Jr., was confined by him in the jail of Barbour County, and that he had reasonable grounds to believe that defendant, Huey R. Lee, Jr., was insane at the time of the commission of said offense, and that he is 'insane now'. On October 22, 1942, W. D. Partlow, superintendent of the State Hospital for the Insane, under the provisions of section 425, Title 15, Code 1940, made known to the Hon. J. S. Williams, judge of the Circuit Court of Barbour County, that in his opinion Huey R. Lee, Jr., was insane either at the time of the commission of the offense charged against him in the indictment, or presently insane. On October 23, 1942, Hon. J. S. Williams, judge of the Circuit Court of Barbour County, made and entered an order for the removal of Huey R. Lee, Jr., from the county jail of Barbour County to the Alabama State Hospital at Tuscaloosa. Huey R. Lee, Jr., was confined in the Alabama State Hospital at Tuscaloosa for observation from October 24, 1942, until towit July 28, 1943. On July 21, 1943, Dr. W. D. Partlow, superintendent of the Alabama State Hospitals for the Insane, Dr. J. S. Tarwater, and Dr. P. B. Mayfield, members of the medical staff of said institution, reported to the Circuit Court of Barbour County, that, in their opinion, at the time Huey R. Lee, Jr., on towit October 24, 1942, was admitted to the Bryce Hospital in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, which is one of Alabama's state hospitals, he was insane, and that at all times, continually from the date of admission to the hospital to the present date of the report, he has been insane, and that said condition existed prior to and at the time of his admission to the hospital, and prior to and at the time of the alleged offense. On receipt of the report, the circuit clerk of Barbour County ordered the sheriff of Barbour County to remove Huey R. Lee, Jr., from Bryce Hospital to the county jail in Barbour County, to be held there pending disposition of the charge against him. The removal was made on August 3, 1943. On October 21, 1943, Huey R. Lee, Jr., was arraigned, and to the indictment interposed the following pleas: (1) not guilty; (2) not guilty by reason of insanity; and (3) not guilty by reason of insanity at the time of the commission of the offense. The cause was called for trial on October 27, 1943, in the Circuit Court of Barbour County, with Hon. J. S. W.illiams presiding. After a jury had been empanelled to try the cause, one of the attorneys for defendant, and who had been employed in the...