Smith v. Crouse

298 F. Supp. 1029, 1968 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7931
District Court, D. Kansas·Decided August 21, 1968·No. Civ. Nos. L-337, L-339, L-346·Published·Cited by 5 cases

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

THEIS, District Judge.

There have been filed with the Clerk of this Court three petitions for writs of habeas corpus, signed and verified by the petitioners George Billie Smith, Herman L. Adamson, and Curtis Edison Lewis. Accompanying each petition is an application in affidavit form for leave to proceed herein without prepayment of fees, i. e., in forma pauperis, as required by 28 U.S.C. § 1915. The petitioners are all currently in the custody of Sherman H. Crouse, Warden of the Kansas State Penitentiary at Lansing, Kansas, under or by color of authority of the State of Kansas.

After an initial examination of the pleadings an order to show-cause was issued in each case to the respondent, Sherman H. Crouse, Warden. Following the show-cause order an answer and traverse was filed in each case and it was determined that an evidentiary hearing should be held in each case. At the hearings the petitioner George Billie Smith was represented by Jim Lawing, of Wichita, Kansas, as court-appointed counsel; the petitioner Herman L. Adamson was represented by Richard Rock, of Arkansas City, Kansas, as court-appointed counsel; and the petitioner Curtis Edison Lewis was represented by Jerry Donnelly, of Lawrence, Kansas, his own retained counsel. The respondent, Sherman H. Crouse, Warden, was represented by Robert C. Londerholm, Attorney General of the State of Kansas, and Daniel Metz, Jon Sargent and Edward G. Collister, Jr., Assistants to the Attorney General.

The facts alleged in the pleadings before the Court in all three cases for habeas relief, and the material adduced at the evidentiary hearings, present the constitutional issue of whether the petitioners have been properly sentenced as habitual criminals under K.S.A. § 21-107a. Whether these petitioners are entitled to relief depends on the answer to two questions: (1) whether these petitioners have exhausted their state remedies when the State of Kansas, through its Supreme Court, recognizes the validity of all foreign state convictions upon a “full faith and credit” premise; and (2) whether the so-called “prematurity doctrine,” i. e., that a prisoner not entitled to release under a present valid conviction may not attack the constitutional validity of consecutive future sentences or recidivist sentences used as a basis for enhancing a sentence given on the valid conviction, remains viable as a rule of law.

Show-cause orders were issued in these three cases on the basis of very recent Supreme Court decisions in Burgett v. State of Texas, 389 U.S. 109, 88 S.Ct. 258, 19 L.Ed.2d 319 (1967), and Mempa v. Rhay, 389 U.S. 128, 88 S.Ct. 254, 19 L.Ed.2d 336 (1967), and the logic of the decision of the Fourth Circuit in Rowe v. Peyton, 383 F.2d 709, 719 (1967), which has since been affirmed -by the Supreme Court in its decision of May 20, 1968, in Peyton v. Rowe, 391 U.S. 54, 88 S.Ct. 1549, 20 L.Ed.2d 426.

These cases are now consolidated under Rule 42(a) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, for the reason that the facts presented in each petition are similar and each presents an identical proposition of law. The Court, after consideration of the files, evidence and briefs in each cause, makes the following findings and orders.

[1032] GEORGE BILLIE SMITH

The petitioner, George Billie Smith, was found guilty in the District Court of Sedgwick County, Kansas, of second degree robbery and grand larceny in June of 1962. During the trial and sentencing the petitioner was represented by court-appointed counsel. At the time of sentencing evidence was presented of three prior convictions, two from the State of Oklahoma, and one from the District Court of Butler County, Kansas. Under the provisions of K.S.A. § 21-107a, the Habitual Criminal Act was invoked and George Billie Smith was sentenced to a term of life imprisonment at the Kansas State Penitentiary at Lansing, Kansas. Documentary evidence used to invoke the Habitual Criminal Act included the following felony convictions:

In 1934, George Billie Smith was convicted in Oklahoma for robbery with firearms, at which time he was sentenced to fifteen years in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary, after his plea of guilty.

In 1946, he was convicted in Oklahoma on the charge of attempted murder and was sentenced to serve fifty years in the Oklahoma State Penitentiary after his plea of guilty to that offense. This sentence was later corrected to a term of only four years, after the petitioner had already served six years of the original fifty-year sentence.

In 1955, the petitioner was convicted in the District Court of Butler County, Kansas, of second degree burglary, and sentenced to a term of five to ten years in the Kansas State Penitentiary.

In August of 1967, George Billie Smith filed a motion under the provisions of K.S.A. § 60-1507 in the District Court of Sedgwick County, Kansas, attacking the sentence he is currently serving. This motion raised the issue that the State of Kansas used three prior convictions to invoke the Habitual Criminal Act where it was alleged the two Oklahoma convictions were invalid because the defendant George Billie Smith was not provided with or represented by counsel. Smith does not question the validity of his Kansas convictions in either Butler or Sedgwick Counties. In October of 1967 the Judge of the District Court of Sedgwick County, Kansas, denied the petitioner relief, counsel was never appointed, an evidentiary hearing was never had, and no appeal has ever been taken from the order of the Sedgwick County District Court.

The petitioner, George Billie Smith, has sought relief in the United States District Court on two earlier occasions and was denied access to that forum for the reason that he had failed to exhaust his state remedies. In this matter now before the Court the answer and return of the Attorney General of the State of Kansas to this Court’s show-cause order, concedes:

“That under the present Kansas law, as announced in the cases of State v. Engberg, 194 Kan. 520 [400 P.2d 701], and Chappell v. State, 197 Kan. 407 [416 P.2d 786], the petitioner does not have an available state court remedy for consideration of his claims directed at the prior out of state convictions.”

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Smith v. Crouse, 298 F. Supp. 1029, 1968 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 7931 (D. Kan. 1968).

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