Ex Parte Clyde Meadows

1941 OK CR 46, 112 P.2d 419, 71 Okla. Crim. 353, 1941 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 49
CourtCourt of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
DecidedMarch 26, 1941
DocketNo. A-9967.
StatusPublished
Cited by43 cases

This text of 1941 OK CR 46 (Ex Parte Clyde Meadows) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Ex Parte Clyde Meadows, 1941 OK CR 46, 112 P.2d 419, 71 Okla. Crim. 353, 1941 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 49 (Okla. Ct. App. 1941).

Opinion

JONES, J.

This is an original proceeding in habeas corpus in which the petitioner, Clyde Meadows, alleges that he is unlawfully imprisoned in the county jail of Comanche county, at Lawton, Oída., and prays for his discharge.

The facts are that on October 2, 1940, the Criminal Court of Appeals handed down an opinion in the case of Ex parte Meadows, 70 Okla. Cr. 304, 106 P. 2d 139, 141, in which said opinion a judgment of the district court of Comanche county was vacated and set aside upon petition of Clyde Meadows, who is the petitioner herein, and further remanded the said Clyde Meadows to the district court of Comanche county “to be there proceeded against the same as if no arraignment had ever been held” upon the information filed- against him.

The facts in that case show that Clyde Meadows' had entered his plea of guilty in the district court of Comanche county to the offense of robbery with firearms, and had been sentenced to serve a term of 40 years’ imprisonment in the State Penitentiary. This sentence was pronounced *356 on April 30, 1932, and the petitioner had been incarcerated in the State Penitentiary from that date until he was delivered by the warden of the State Penitentiary to the custody of the sheriff of Comanche county, respondent herein, in accordance with the opinion of this court in said cause. For a fuller discussion of the facts, reference is hereby made to the opinion filed in Ex parte Meadows, supra.

After said petitioner was taken back to Lawton, his case was set for trial for December 4,1940. .The petitioner then made a second application for writ of habeas corpus before this court, in which he seeks his unqualified discharge for the reason that he has been denied his constitutional and statutory right to a speedy trial.

Article 2, § 20, of the Oklahoma Constitution, Okla. St. Ann. Const., provides :

“In all criminal prosecutions the accused shall have the right to a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury of the county in which the crime shall have been committed. i:' * *”

It has been provided by statute that:

“If a defendant, prosecuted for a public offense, whose trial has not been postponed upon his application, is not brought to trial at the next term of court in which the indictment or information is triable after it is filed, the court must order the prosecution to be dismissed, unless good cause to the contrary be shown.” Section 2872, O. S. 1931, 22 Okla. St. Ann. §’812.

Counsel for both the petitioner and the respondent have stated to this court that after an exhaustive search they have not been able to f-ind any recorded case in the United States in which the facts exactly parallel the facts in the instant case.

*357 Each of them cite authorities in their briefs in which cases the petitioner had two or more charges filed against him, and was confined in the penitentiary on one of said charges, and completed serving his time on that charge before being brought to trial on the second offense. Under those circumstances the authorities are divided, although the majority seem to hold that the delay in bringing the defendant to trial was caused by laches on the part of the prosecution and not through any fault of the defendant, and that his constitutional right to a speedy trial had been violated, and the petitioner was accordingly discharged.

Section 2872, supra, has been before the Criminal Court of Appeals many times for construction. In the early case of Head v. State, 9 Okla. Cr. 356, 131 P. 937, 44 L. R. A., N. S., 871, we find the facts more nearly similar to the facts in the case at bar than in any other Oklahoma case. In that case, the defendant was charged by indictment on June 29, 1909. On the 9th day of July, 1909, the court sustained a motion to quash the indictment. The county attorney prosecuted an appeal from that decision to the Criminal Court of Appeals. Other indictments against the same defendant, returned by the same grand jury, were continued during the pendency of the appeal. Pending said appeal, the other cases remained on the docket without any effort on the part of the state to bring the defendant to trial until the 11th day of April, 1911. On that day the defendant filed a motion to dismiss one of these cases then before the court upon the ground that he had not previously been brought to trial, and that the delay in the trial had not been occasioned by his delay or fault, and that he had been denied his constitutional right to' a speedy trial.

In the opinion by Judge Furman, this court held that the reasons why the cause was not tried sooner were good *358 and sufficient; that the burden was on the defendant in support of his motion to dismiss to- show that the laches was on the part of the state, through its prosecuting officer; otherwise, the presumption is that the delay was caused by or with the consent of the defendant himself.

The early Kansas case of State v. Campbell, 73 Kan. 688, 85 P. 784, 786, 9 L. R. A., N. S., 533, 9 Ann. Cas. 1203, discusses the history of the Kansas statute, which is similar to the Oklahoma statute, relating to a speedy trial. In that case it is stated:
“It is proper here to' refer to the history of the statute insuring to a person indicted and imprisoned or held to bail a speedy trial. By considering the evil sought to be remedied, we are better enabled to construe the statute. When it was enacted it followed in general terms the provisions of similar statutes in the older states, and in them the evil sought to be remedied was one which the English people had struggled against since before the days of Magna Charta and the petition of rights. It recalls the days of tyranny and despotism, when men were allowed to lie in dungeons for long periods without even an opportunity to know the nature of the charge against them. A speedy trial for all accused persons was one of the things insisted upon by the people of England in the first Bill of Rights, and English laws have jealously guarded the right from that time. It is provided for in the first ten amendments of the federal Constitution, being embodied in the sixth of the ten amendments submitted by the First Congress. The guaranty of the federal Constitution, however, has been held not to' apply to acts of the Legislatures of the several states or to state courts. Fox v. State of Ohio, 5 How. (U. S.) 410, 12 L. Ed. 213; Murphy v. People, 2 Cow., N. Y., 815. The same provision, or one similar, is found in the Constitutions of most of the states. It is a part of section 10 of our Bill of Rights. The statute is for the purpose of carrying into effect this provision of the Constitution. It was never intended to- apply to the facts in a case like the one at bar. Here there was no laches or *359 delay on the part of the state within the spirit and intention of the statute. The state was doing all within its power to bring the appellant to a speedy trial. A trial was begun, a motion to quash sustained, and the state appealed. This statute must be construed with the one giving to the state the right to appeal from a judgment sustaining a motion to quash the indictment. Code Cr. Proc. § 283; Gen. St. 1901, § 5721.

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

Related

Olson v. State
452 P.2d 764 (Idaho Supreme Court, 1969)
Raburn v. Nash
431 P.2d 874 (New Mexico Supreme Court, 1967)
Bell v. State
1967 OK CR 132 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1967)
Pickle v. Bliss
1966 OK CR 128 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1966)
Tiner v. State
182 So. 2d 859 (Supreme Court of Alabama, 1966)
Castle v. State
1964 OK CR 52 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1964)
Payne v. State
1963 OK CR 104 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1963)
State v. Patton
132 S.E.2d 891 (Supreme Court of North Carolina, 1963)
Fike v. State
1963 OK CR 93 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1963)
In re the Habeas Corpus of Kaiser
1958 OK CR 75 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1958)
In Re the Habeas Corpus of Gregory
1957 OK CR 37 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1957)
Application of Hayes
1956 OK CR 91 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1956)
Traxler v. State
1952 OK CR 162 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1952)
State v. Hadley
249 S.W.2d 857 (Supreme Court of Missouri, 1952)
Robedeaux v. State
1951 OK CR 77 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1951)
Wild v. State of Oklahoma
187 F.2d 409 (Tenth Circuit, 1951)
Cornell v. State
1950 OK CR 49 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1950)
Hembree v. Howell
1950 OK CR 14 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1950)
Ex Parte Ray
1948 OK CR 102 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1948)
Ex Parte Pearson
1948 OK CR 88 (Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma, 1948)

Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
1941 OK CR 46, 112 P.2d 419, 71 Okla. Crim. 353, 1941 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 49, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/ex-parte-clyde-meadows-oklacrimapp-1941.