Ex parte Davis

• Decision Date: 19 October 1939
• Docket Number: A-9752.
• Citation: 95 P.2d 915,68 Okla.Crim. 29
• Parties: Ex parte DAVIS.
• Court: United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma

95 P.2d 915

68 Okla.Crim. 29

Ex parte DAVIS.

No. A-9752.

Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma

October 19, 1939

Syllabus by the Court.

1. The review of a judgment of conviction and imprisonment by writ of habeas corpus is limited to jurisdictional error.

2. Where a prisoner in custody under sentence of conviction seeks to be discharged on habeas corpus the inquiry is limited to the question whether the court in which the prisoner was convicted had jurisdiction of his person and of the crime charged; and if the trial court had jurisdiction to convict and sentence, the writ cannot issue to correct mere errors.

Proceeding on the application of A. B. C. Davis for a writ of habeas corpus to be directed to Jess F. Dunn, Warden of the State Penitentiary, wherein the Attorney General filed a demurrer to the petition, and the cause was submitted on the petition and the demurrer.

Demurrer sustained, writ denied, and cause dismissed.

A. B C. Davis, in pro. per.

Mac Q Williamson, Atty. Gen., and Sam H. Lattimore, Asst. Atty Gen., for respondent.

PER CURIAM.

The petitioner, A. B. C. Davis, filed his petition for a writ of habeas corpus in this court by mail, wherein it is alleged that he is unlawfully imprisoned and detained in the State Penitentiary at McAlester, by respondent, Jess F. Dunn, under a commitment issued out of the district court of Oklahoma County, upon a judgment rendered in said court upon a verdict finding said petitioner guilty of the crime of murder.

It is further alleged that:

"The said imprisonment, detention, confinement, and restraint are illegal; and the illegality thereof consists in this to wit.

The Ku-Klux-Klan practiced a fraud on this petitioner, the Court, and Society. I cite their own evidence as evidence.

I obtained a part of the printed evidence adduced in a Military Court in Oklahoma City, in the fall of 1923, when Governor Walton secured the membership roaster of the Klan, and compelled some three hundred of its members to testify under oath. I obtained this printed evidence at the Historical Society, State Capitol, and filed it with the pardon and parole attorney. Following is in substance, their testimony.

Old Dr Davis was railroaded to the penitentiary by the Klan, his witnesses were driven from the court house and threatened with being beaten to death, women testified against the old doctor so heavily veiled that no one could tell who they were. Fightmaster was jury commissioner and put no names in the jury box for juries to be drawn from in the spring term of court but Klansmen, the Klan passed a resolution in their conclave to convict each and every one that the county attorney filed charges against so he could be elected a district judge, all the judges, all the justices of the peace, the county attorney and...