Wetzel v. State, 39355
| Decision Date | 17 January 1955 |
| Docket Number | No. 39355,39355 |
| Parties | William A. WETZEL v. STATE of Mississippi. |
| Court | Mississippi Supreme Court |
Neill, Clark & Townsend, Indianola, Howard A. McDonnell, Biloxi, for appellant.
J. P. Coleman, Atty. Gen., by Joe T. Patterson, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
On December 6, 1954 this Court affirmed William A. Wetzel's conviction of murder and death sentence. Miss., 76 So.2d 188. On the same day his petition for a writ of error coram nobis was denied. Miss., 76 So.2d 194. January 20, 1955, was fixed as the date for execution of the death sentence. On January 12, 1955, Wetzel filed a petition, which he designates as 'Application for Leave to File Petition for Writ of Error Coram Nobis.'
This petition is filed under Chapter 250, Miss.Laws 1952. In brief, that statute provides that in all criminal cases where a judgment of conviction has been affirmed on appeal, 'no petition for the writ of error coram nobis shall be allowed to be filed or entertained in the trial court unless and until the petition for the writ shall have first been presented' to this Court, and 'an order granted allowing the filing of such petition in the trial court.' Chapter 250 provides for three days written notice to be served on the Attorney General, but that the same may be waived. The Attorney General has waived that three-day notice.
Chapter 250 establishes a procedure before this Court which is a condition precedent to filing a petition for writ of error coram nobis in the trial court in criminal cases after conviction has been affirmed. The Mississippi Constitution of 1890, Section 146, designates this Court an appellate court. We have no facilities for hearing extensive oral testimony. The established practice is that applications of this sort and motions should have attached to them supporting affidavits concerning the facts charged in the pleading. The application for leave to file the petition for writ in the circuit court has no affidavits attached. With one minor exception hereinafter referred to, it raises the same questions which were presented to this Court, and decided by it in the first petition for writ of error coram nobis dealt with in 76 So.2d 194. The decision there is res judicata of the averments and matters raised in the present application, which asks us to authorize the trial court to consider again the same issues already decided in 76 So.2d 194. If such a hearing were had in the trial court, the circuit court would necessarily have to consider that the law of the case is established by the decision of December 6, 1954, and that it is res judicata of the instant application and of the proposed petition for the writ.
The only additional fact alleged in this application is that Robert James, an ex-convict, was confined in Camp 5 at the State Penitentiary when McGraw was killed; that James has made the statement that he was standing immediately beside Wetzel at the time of the cutting, and that Wetzel had no part in the slaying; that James can be brought into court as a witness to so testify; and that his testimony was not known to petitioner during the trial, nor until January 12, 1955. If James' testimony should be considered, it would be merely cumulative for Wetzel on an issue litigated in his trial on the merits. Wetzel and several other witnesses testified that he was not at the...
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Wetzel v. Wiggins, 40176
...was convicted of the murder of McGraw and sentenced to death by electrocution. His conviction was affirmed by this Court. Wetzel v. State, Miss., 76 So.2d 188; Wetzel v. State, Miss., 76 So.2d 194; Wetzel v. State, Miss., 76 So.2d 846. Thereafter, appellant perfected an appeal to the Suprem......
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Kitchens v. State of Mississippi
...in the nature of newly-discovered evidence, so that under the Mississippi rule coram nobis might not be available. See Wetzel v. State, 225 Miss. 450, 76 So.2d 846 (1955); Lang v. State, 230 Miss. 147, 92 So.2d 670 The State relies on Knight v. State, Miss., 204 So.2d 568 (1967) to show tha......
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Wetzel v. State, 39355
...it was decided that this second petition should be denied for the reasons stated by the Court in its opinions reported in 76 So.2d 194 and 76 So.2d 846. The Chief Justice was authorized by the conference to notify appellant's attorney that this action had been taken and that an opinion woul......