Richardson v. Ross, Civ. No. 2502.

• Court: United States District Courts. 4th Circuit. Eastern District of North Carolina
• Writing for the Court: LARKINS
• Citation: 310 F. Supp. 134
• Parties: Ollie RICHARDSON, Petitioner, v. Mr. Fred R. ROSS, Major of Caledonia Prison Farm, Tillery, North Carolina, Respondent.
• Docket Number: Civ. No. 2502.
• Decision Date: 02 March 1970

310 F. Supp. 134

Ollie RICHARDSON, Petitioner,
v.
Mr. Fred R. ROSS, Major of Caledonia Prison Farm, Tillery, North Carolina, Respondent.

Civ. No. 2502.

United States District Court, E. D. North Carolina, Raleigh Division.

March 2, 1970.

Ollie Richardson, pro se.

Robert Morgan, Atty. Gen. of N. C., by Jacob L. Safron, Staff Atty., Raleigh, for respondent.

MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER

LARKINS, District Judge:

Now comes this cause before the Court as an application for a Writ of Habeas Corpus, filed by a State prisoner, pursuant to the provisions of Title 28, United States Code Annotated, Section 2254. Issues have been joined by the Respondent's Answer and Motion to Dismiss.

The Petitioner asserts before this Court that his Constitutional rights have been violated by the State of North Carolina in the following particulars:

(1) In that no indictment existed for the charge of Accessory Before and To the Fact of First Degree Murder upon which his conviction and sentence could rest; and,

(2) In that his plea of guilty to the offense charged was in some way coerced.

The Respondent answers that there has been no denial of Petitioner's rights and prays dismissal of the application.

FINDINGS OF FACT

Twenty-one years ago this month, on March 26, 1949, this Petitioner, while

310 F. Supp. 135

out on parole from the conviction and sentence for the crime of murder in the second degree, fatally wounded, by means of a knife, his wife, Rosa Mae Frances Richardson. At the May, 1949 Term of the Nash County Superior Court, Petitioner was indicted by the Grand Jury for Murder in the First Degree in the matter of his wife's death, and he was brought to trial on June 1 of that year. Upon his plea of Not Guilty and a Trial by Jury, the Petitioner was found Guilty without a Recommendation for Mercy, and thereby sentenced mandatorily to death. In that year, the Petitioner's chances for being subjected to execution of the sentence were excellent. In those days, death penalties were carried out with few exceptions, ten actually occurring during the year of his conviction and sentence. The Honorable Henry A. Grady, in the exercise of the Court's discretion, set aside the conviction and resultant penalty of death, permitting the Petitioner to tender a Plea of Guilty to the offense of being an accessory before the fact to the crime of murder in the first degree, which plea was accepted by the Court in lieu of all other pleas and the Petitioner was sentenced to the term of his natural life, thereby literally saving him from the gas chamber...