Ex Parte Clyde Meadows

1941 OK CR 46, 112 P.2d 419, 71 Okla. Crim. 353, 1941 Okla. Crim. App. LEXIS 49
Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma·Decided March 26, 1941·No. No. A-9967.·Published·Cited by 43 cases

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:

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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).

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