Collins v. State

• Decision Date: 10 January 1903
• Docket Number: 13,093
• Citation: 66 Kan. 201,71 P. 251
• Parties: JOHN H. COLLINS v. THE STATE OF KANSAS
• Court: Kansas Supreme Court

71 P. 251

66 Kan. 201

JOHN H. COLLINS v. THE STATE OF KANSAS

No. 13,093

Supreme Court of Kansas

January 10, 1903

Decided January, 1903.

Error from Shawnee district court; Z. T. HAZEN, judge.

Judgment affirmed.

SYLLABUS

SYLLABUS BY THE COURT.

CORAM NOBIS -- Purpose of the Writ. The writ of error coram nobis will not lie to vacate a judgment of conviction and secure a retrial of the accused because of his inability, within statutory limits of time, to prepare a record in appeal to this court showing the errors of which complaint was made. Such writ lies only to correct errors of fact in ignorance or disregard of which the judgment was pronounced, and to relieve from which no other remedy exists.

Hayden & Hayden, and Welch & Welch, for plaintiff in error.

Galen Nichols, county attorney, for The State.

DOSTER C. All the Justices concurring.

OPINION

DOSTER, C. J.:

This was a proceeding in error coram nobis, begun in the district court, to vacate a judgment of conviction of John H. Collins of the crime of murder, and to secure for him a retrial. The court below denied the writ, and from its order of denial this proceeding in error has been instituted.

The sole ground upon which a claim of right to the writ is based is that Collins was prevented from appealing his case to this court because of his inability to make up a record embodying his exceptions to the rulings of the court trying him, and showing the errors committed against him, within the time allowed by law for perfecting and filing such record. That however grievous the hardship, does not constitute a reason for the issuance of the writ of error coram nobis. That writ lies only to correct the record of the trial itself in matters of fact existing at the time of the pronouncement of the judgment, in respect of which the court was unadvised, but had it been advised, the judgment would not have been pronounced. The unvarying test of the writ coram nobis is mistake or lack of knowledge of facts inhering in the judgment itself. It has never been granted to relieve from consequences arising subsequently to the judgment. In The State v. Calhoun, 50 Kan. 523, 32 P. 38, 18 L. R. A. 838, 34 Am. St. Rep. 141, it was allowed in order to relieve from the consequences of a plea of guilty made through duress of fears induced by threats of mob violence. In Asbell v. The State, 62 Kan. 209, 61 P. 690, it was denied for the reason that the facts on which the application was predicated were known during the progress of...