Pyle v. State of Kansas
| Decision Date | 07 December 1942 |
| Docket Number | No. 50,50 |
| Parties | PYLE v. STATE OF KANSAS et al |
| Court | U.S. Supreme Court |
Mr. Joseph P. Tumulty, Jr., of Washington, D.C., for petitioner.
Mr. Jay Kyle, of Topeka, Kan., for respondents.
Petitioner seeks to review an order of the Supreme Court of Kansas denying his application for writ of habeas corpus. In 1953 petitioner was convicted by a jury in a Kansas state court upon an information charging him with the crimes of murder and robbery. A motion for a new trial was overruled, and he was sentenced to life imprisonment under his conviction for murder, and to a term of from 10 to 21 years for robbery. On appeal the judgment was affirmed by the Supreme Court of Kansas. State v. Pyle, 143 Kan. 772, 57 P.2d 93.
On November 20, 1941, petitioner, a layman acting in his own behalf, filed an original application for writ of habeas corpus in the Supreme Court of Kansas. The crude allegations of this application charge that his imprisonment was the result of a deprivation of rights guaranteed him by the Constitution of the United States, in that the Kansas prosecuting authorities obtained his conviction by the presentation of testimony known to be perjured, and by the suppression of testimony favorable to him. Filed with this application were a brief and an abstract, also apparently prepared by petitioner himself, which are part of the record before us. These documents elaborate the general charges of the application, and specifically allege that 'one Truman Reynolds and coerced and threatened by the State to testify falsely against the petitioner and that said testimony did harm to the petitioner's defense'; that 'one Lacy Cunningham who had been previously committed to a mental institution was threatened with prosecution if he did not testify for the State'; that the testimony of one Roy Riley, material to petitioner's defense, 'was repressed under threat and coercion by the State'; that Mrs. Roy Riley and Mrs. Thelma Richardson were intimidated and their testimony suppressed; and, that the record in the trial of one Merl Hudson for complicity in the same murder and robbery for which petitioner was convicted, held about six months after petitioner's direct appeal from his conviction, reveals that the evidence there presented is inconsistent with the evidence presented at petitioner's trial, and clearly exonerates petitioner.
Certain exhibits accompanied the application; among these were copies, sworn by petitioner to be true and correct copies of the originals, of an affidavit executed by Truman Reynolds in 1940, and a letter dated February 28, 1941, from the former prosecuting attorney who represented the State at petitioner's trial. The affidavit contained a statement that affiant 'was forced to give perjured testimony against Harry Pyle under threat by local authorities at St. John, Kansas and the Kansas State Police, of a penitentiary sentence for burglary if I did not testify against Mr. Pyle'. The letter stated, 'Your conviction was a grave mistake', and further that, 'The evidence at the trial of Murl Hudson certainly shattered the conclusions drawn from the evidence produced at your trial.'
In connection with his application petitioner moved for the appointment of counsel to represent him, for subpoenas duces tecum to bring up the records in the trials of Merl...
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