State ex rel. Coats v. Hunter, O-78-238
| Decision Date | 08 June 1978 |
| Docket Number | No. O-78-238,O-78-238 |
| Citation | 580 P.2d 158,1978 OK CR 57 |
| Parties | The STATE of Oklahoma ex rel. Andrew M. COATS, District Attorney Oklahoma County, Petitioner, v. The Honorable Stewart M. HUNTER, District Judge for the Seventh Judicial District of the State of Oklahoma, Respondent. |
| Court | United States State Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma. Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma |
On April 26, 1978, Stewart M. Hunter, District Judge of Oklahoma County, Oklahoma, ordered that Jerry Lewis Thomas' application for post-conviction relief, Case No. 27984, be treated as a class action and that the class be comprised of:
"(A)ll male persons now or hereafter to come within the actual physical custody of the Oklahoma Department of Corrections (and its subordinate prisons, institutions, and similar confinement facilities) who from August 28, 1938 (being the date of the promulgation of the decision, and Syllabus 2 thereof, of Wilson v. State, 65 Okl.Cr. 10, 82 P.2d 308) were convicted as adults for misconduct committed at age(s) 16 and/or 17 years, and for which misconduct they were never certified to stand trial as adults by prior order of a juvenile judge."
As the result of that order, this Court now has four petitions before it. The District Attorney of Oklahoma County, Oklahoma has filed an application to assume original jurisdiction, seeking a writ of mandamus. In the alternative it seeks a writ of prohibition against the respondent. Finally, the District Attorney has made an application to stay proceedings in the case. The respondent has filed a motion to dismiss petitioner's application to assume original jurisdiction and its application for original relief on the grounds that the proper remedy for reviewing an order declaring a class action is by appeal and not by extraordinary writ, that the Supreme Court and not the Court of Criminal Appeals is vested with appellate jurisdiction over class action matters, and finally that the State's remedies within the District Court have not yet been exhausted.
The respondent urges that the recent amendment to 12 O.S.1971, § 993, specifies conditions under which class actions can be filed, gives him authority to declare a class in an application for post-conviction relief. He states that Thomas' action is more properly an application for a writ of habeas corpus and that habeas corpus is traditionally a civil remedy. Therefore, the action should be governed by Oklahoma's law on civil procedure.
Federal Rules of Civil Procedure No. 81(a)(2), provides...
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