Dickerson v. Cox, 70-C-11-C.
| Decision Date | 09 July 1970 |
| Docket Number | No. 70-C-11-C.,70-C-11-C. |
| Citation | 316 F. Supp. 865 |
| Parties | James Clifton DICKERSON, Petitioner, v. J. D. COX, Superintendent, Virginia State Penitentiary, Respondent. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Western District of Virginia |
Reno S. Harp, III, Asst. Atty. Gen., Richmond, Va. for respondent.
Petitioner was convicted in the Circuit Court of Albemarle County of murder in the first degree of his wife and felonious assault of his mother-in-law. On April 3, 1967, that court sentenced him to forty years on the murder conviction and five years on the felonious assault charge with the sentences to run concurrently. Petitioner was represented by an attorney appointed by the court some months before the trial, but not until after the prisoner made a confession to the sheriff's deputies.
Petitioner now brings this habeas corpus action under 28 U.S.C. § 2241 and alleges that the murder indictment was insufficient to sustain a conviction of murder in the first degree, that he was denied his right of appeal, that he was not adequately advised of his right to counsel at interrogation, and that the evidence was insufficient to prove first degree murder.
Petitioner presented all of these claims except the issue of the sufficiency of the murder indictment in a petition for a writ of habeas corpus to the Circuit Court of Albemarle County. That court accorded him a full hearing on the factual issues surrounding his allegations of deprivation of rights and then denied the writ. Appeal was taken to the Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia which denied a writ of error. On May 5, 1970, the present petition was filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia at Richmond which, by order of the same date, allowed the petitioner to proceed in forma pauperis and transferred the case to this court.
Even if the question of the sufficiency of this indictment could be raised in a federal habeas corpus hearing, the petitioner has not presented this issue to the state courts. He therefore has not satisfied the exhaustion of state remedies requirement of 28 U.S.C. § 2254.
The question of the sufficiency of the evidence generally is not properly cognizable by a federal court considering habeas corpus relief under 28 U.S.C. § 2241(c) (3). The purpose of federal habeas corpus inquiry into state court proceedings is to determine whether a prisoner's federal constitutional rights have been safeguarded, not to determine anew the question of guilt or innocence. See 83 Harv.L.Rev. 1038, 1055-1062 (1970). Even the prisoner's own petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the state court makes clear that there was not such a lack of evidence as to be subject to constitutional due process objection. See Johnson v. Florida, 391 U.S. 596, 88 S.Ct. 1713, 20 L.Ed.2d 838 (1968); Thompson v. City of Louisville, 362 U.S. 199, 80...
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