Henry Simpson v. Harley O. Teets, Warden, California State Prison at San Quentin

239 F.2d 890

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
• Decided: December 6, 1956
• Docket: 14895_1
• Status: Published

Opinions

HEALY, Circuit Judge.

Appellant was charged in a California Superior Court of causing his son, Clarence, to murder appellant’s wife, Clarence’s mother. On a trial before a jury a verdict of guilty of murder in the first degree was returned against him. The jury determined also that appellant was not insane. A sentence of death was imposed against him. On the mandatory appeal to the state Supreme Court the conviction was affirmed. People v. Simpson, 43 Cal.2d 553, 275 P.2d 31. Habeas corpus proceedings were then brought in the state Supreme Court, the petition for the writ being predicated in major part on a claim that appellant’s stepson, Donald Dodge, gaye knowingly perjured testimony on the trial. This petition the California Supreme Court denied. Certiorari was applied for to the United States Supreme Court and was denied. Simpson v. Teets, 349 U.S. 960, 75 S.Ct. 890, 99 L.Ed. 1283.

The present appeal is from a denial of the petition for the writ presented to the court below, District Judge Roche presiding. The petition there lodged and denied is identical in its averments with that presented to the Supreme Court of California and likewise with that accompanying the petition for certiorari which was denied by the United States Supreme Court.

The prime contention of Simpson’s counsel appears to be that because the California Supreme Court denied without opinion his petition for the writ, that therefore it did not consider the petition. The same contention seems to be put forward with respect to the denial of cer-tiorari by the United States Supreme Court. We are unable to see any merit in this contention, or in the appeal.

The District Court’s denial of the writ is accordingly affirmed.