State ex rel. Meyer v. Youngblood, 27862.

• Decision Date: 30 April 1943
• Docket Number: No. 27862.,27862.
• Citation: 221 Ind. 408,48 N.E.2d 55
• Parties: STATE ex rel. MEYER, Pros. Atty., v. YOUNGBLOOD, Circuit Judge.
• Court: Indiana Supreme Court

221 Ind. 408

48 N.E.2d 55

STATE ex rel. MEYER, Pros. Atty.,

v.YOUNGBLOOD, Circuit Judge.

No. 27862.

Supreme Court of Indiana.

April 30, 1943.

Original action by the State of Indiana, on the relation of James H. Meyer, Prosecuting Attorney in and for the First Judicial Circuit of the State of Indiana, against Nat H. Youngblood, as Judge of the Vanderburgh Circuit Court, Vanderburgh County, Indiana, for a writ prohibiting respondent from exercising jurisdiction to hear three separate petitions for writs of error coram nobis. A temporary writ of prohibition was issued.

Respondent prohibited from assuming jurisdiction to act upon the petitions in accordance with opinion.James H. Meyer, of Evansville, for petitioner.

Theodore Lockyear, of Evansville, for respondent.

FANSLER, Judge.

This is an original action for a writ prohibiting the Hon. Nat H. Youngblood, regular Judge of the Vanderburgh Circuit Court, from exercising jurisdiction to hear three separate petitions for writs of error coram nobis filed in three separate cases in which the petitioners were convicted of felonies in the Vanderburgh Circuit Court prior to the beginning of the term of the present regular judge. The criminal cases in which the judgments of conviction sought to be vacated are entered were tried before the Hon. John W. Spencer, Jr., then the regular judge, and the Hon. Oscar Lanphar, and the Hon. Phil C. Gould, special judges. Upon the filing of the petition, a temporary writ of prohibition issued.

It is conceded that the judges who tried the cases in which the judgments of conviction were rendered are available.

It must be considered as settled by State ex rel. Witte v. Smith, Judge, 1942, Ind.Sup., 45 N.E.2d 204, and the cases there cited, that jurisdiction to hear and determine the merits of the questions presented by a petition for a writ of error coram nobis is in the judge who presided when the judgment in the criminal case was entered if he is available.

Some confusion seems to have arisen out of certain language in State ex rel. Cutsinger v. Spencer, Judge, 1941, 219 Ind. 148, 41 N.E.2d 601, which seemed to indicate that the coram nobis proceeding is a new and independent action. These statements were made arguendo to support the expressed conclusion that the prosecution of the defendant was concluded, and that the defendant and not the state was the moving party, and the constitutional provision that he be provided with counsel no longer applied. It has...