Young v. Parker
| Decision Date | 30 July 1946 |
| Docket Number | 39994 |
| Parties | Lawrence Young, Petitioner, v. W. C. Parker, Warden of the Missouri State Penitentiary |
| Court | Missouri Supreme Court |
Habeas Corpus.
Writ quashed.
Scott Peters for petitioner.
Gordon Weir, Assistant Attorney General, for respondent.
Original proceeding in this court by habeas corpus filed on June 8, 1946, seeking release of petitioner from the custody of the warden of the state penitentiary. From the pleadings and attached exhibits, we glean the following conceded facts: On February 4, 1941, in the Circuit Court of St. Francois County, petitioner entered pleas of guilty to three separate charges, to wit, first degree robbery kidnapping, and larceny. On each of the first two charges he was sentenced to life imprisonment and on the other charge to five years in the penitentiary. The judgment and sentence in each case recited that petitioner appeared "in presence of his attorney and counsel." Petitioner has never appealed from or sought review or modification of these judgments.
In July, 1945, petitioner brought a habeas corpus suit in the Circuit Court of Cole County. His petition alleged that he was illegally confined in the penitentiary, located in Cole County, under judgments of the Circuit Court of St. Francois County, which judgments were void because petitioner, in fact, had not been accorded the right to be represented by counsel when he entered pleas of guilty. The warden's return set up the St. Francois County judgments in justification of his restraint of petitioner. After a hearing, the Circuit Court of Cole County found the issues for petitioner and ordered him returned to the Circuit Court of St. Francois County "to be dealt with according to law." On motion of the prosecuting attorney, the St Francois court again remanded petitioner to the penitentiary under the original judgments rendered in 1941.
In the instant case in this Court, petitioner's sole reliance is upon the judgment of the Circuit Court of Cole County. He contends that that judgment imports absolute verity and therefore, is conclusive in the Circuit Court of St. Francois County and in this Court. In stating that a domestic judgment, fair on its face and rendered by a court with jurisdiction of the subject matter and the parties, is impervious to collateral attack, petitioner states a correct principle of law in the abstract, but, in applying that principle to the instant case, petitioner is "hoist on his own petard." The St. Francois judgments were rendered by a court with jurisdiction of the subject matter and the parties and recite the jurisdictional requirement that petitioner was represented by counsel before sentence. Those judgments import verity and were and are impervious to attack, necessarily collateral, in the Circuit Court of Cole County. The latter court had jurisdiction of the subject matter and the parties, but its own record shows it was without jurisdiction to render the particular judgment it attempted to render, that is, to determine by extraneous evidence and hold that the recitals in the St. Francois County judgments are untrue. Should we hold otherwise the integrity and value of domestic judgments in both civil and criminal cases would be greatly depreciated. Many authorities could be cited; a few will suffice.
In re Lydia Sisk, 305 Mo. 328, 265 S.W. 536, and Flansburg v. Kaiser, Warden (Mo.), 184 S.W.2d 1004 decisions of this Court, en Banc, are in point. In each case an application by habeas corpus filed in this Court was denied because it constituted a collateral attack on a judgment and sentence in a circuit court. In the Sisk case we said: ...
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State ex rel. Stewart v. Blair
...determine by extraneous evidence facts which did not appear upon the face of the record. Flansburg v. Kaiser, 184 S.W.2d 1004; Young v. Parker, 195 S.W.2d 743. (2) The Circuit Court of Cole County erred in going the records of the trial court to consider facts which did not go to the jurisd......
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State ex rel. Stewart v. Blair
... ... There can be no doubt that the testimony was admissible below ... since it did not impeach the judgment in the criminal case, ... Young v. Parker, 355 Mo. 245, 246(1), 195 S.W.2d ... 743(1), 744(2). And it is also true that a habeas corpus ... proceeding is not appealable, and ... ...
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Smiley v. Smiley
...and the court held that such allegation, duly verified, must be made in the petition, when such petition was filed. In Young v. Parker, 355 Mo. 245, 195 S.W.2d 743, 744, Supreme Court of this State, en banc, said as follows: 'The St. Francois judgments were rendered by a court with jurisdic......