Pierce v. Page, 8609.
Decision Date | 01 August 1966 |
Docket Number | No. 8609.,8609. |
Citation | 362 F.2d 534 |
Parties | Kenneth Alvis PIERCE, Appellant, v. Ray H. PAGE, Warden, and the State of Oklahoma, Appellees. |
Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Tenth Circuit |
James R. Schmitt, Wichita, Kan., for appellant.
Charles L. Owens, Tulsa, Okl. (Charles Nesbitt, Atty. Gen. of Oklahoma, on brief), for appellees.
Before MURRAH, Chief Judge, and PHILLIPS and LEWIS, Circuit Judges.
Petitioner Pierce appeals from an order dismissing his application for writ of habeas corpus. He was tried and convicted by a jury and sentenced to ten years in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary for burglary second degree after former conviction of a felony. The conviction and sentence were affirmed on appeal and two petitions for rehearing denied. Pierce v. State, Okl.Cr.App., 383 P.2d 699. After petition for writ of habeas corpus was denied in the state court, Pierce filed this application alleging that he was not afforded a constitutionally guaranteed fair trial.
Complaint is made of the exclusion from the evidence of six documents which petitioner contends went to the basic defense of insanity. He also complains of the instructions of the court on the penalty to be assessed and of numerous incidents during the trial which he says demonstrates that it was conducted in an air of prejudice and partiality. The federal trial court denied the writ without a hearing based upon a reading of the opinion of the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals and a review of the case-made in that court.
It seems redundant to say again that habeas corpus is not available to review errors in criminal cases. " See Hickock v. Crouse, 10 Cir., 334 F.2d 95, 100, cert. denied 379 U.S. 982, 85 S.Ct. 689, 13 L.Ed.2d 572, reh. denied 380 U.S. 928, 85 S.Ct. 908, 13 L.Ed.2d 817, quoting Townsend v. Sain, 372 U.S. 293, 311-312, 83 S.Ct. 745, 9 L.Ed.2d 770; see also Poulson v. Turner, 10 Cir., 359 F.2d 588.
It is strenuously argued on appeal, as in the trial court, that any one of the errors complained of is of sufficient gravity to deprive petiti...
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...(emphasis added), and any error of State law in applying the statute would not be cognizable in a federal habeas suit. Pierce v. Page, 362 F.2d 534, 535 (10th Cir.). However, Garner's counsel points out that a State three-judge district court panel held § 1101A invalid in November 1971, pri......
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