Vickery v. Nall

110 F. Supp. 740, 1953 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3155
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. Kentucky
DecidedMarch 24, 1953
DocketCiv. A. 2545
StatusPublished

This text of 110 F. Supp. 740 (Vickery v. Nall) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. Kentucky primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Vickery v. Nall, 110 F. Supp. 740, 1953 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3155 (W.D. Ky. 1953).

Opinion

SHELBOURNE, District Judge.

This action was instituted January 17, 1953, by the filing by the petitioner of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus and his motion that he be allowed to proceed herein in forma pauperis, in accordance with the provisions of Title 28, Section 1915, U.S.Code.

His affidavit in support of his application to proceed in forma pauperis being sufficient, an order was entered authorizing a rule to issue against the defendants to produce in this court the petitioner then confined in the Kentucky State Reformatory at LaGrange, Kentucky, and on the 20th day of February 1953, the defendant was produced and a hearing was had on his petition.

The Attorney General of' the Commonwealth of Kentucky was notified by registered mail and furnished copy of the application for the writ of habeas corpus and the writ. No appearance was made by the Attorney General at. the hearing and none has been, made subsequent to the hearing.

Petitioner alleges in substance that on the 19th day of November 1942, petitioner was indicted in the Hardin Circuit Court at Elizabethtown, Kentucky, for the crime of murder and was released from that court on bond. On May 29, 1945, he was convicted in the Vanderburg Circuit Court of Vanderburg County, Indiana, for the crime of armed robbery and received a sentence of ten years, for which he was sent to the Indiana State Reformatory at Pendleton, Madison County, Indiana, and was thereafter, on January 1, 1946, transferred to the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City. LaPorte County, Indiana.

[741]*741Thereafter, on October 25, 1947, petitioner was transferred by Jake A. Nall and, Harvey Tabb, Deputy Sheriffs of Hardin Gounty, Kentucky, from the prison in LaPorte County, Indiana, to Elizabethtown, Kentucky and on December 10, 1947, in the Hardin Circuit Court, he was convicted upon the indictment for murder returned against him November 19, 1942 and sentenced to a term of fifteen years in the penitentiary. The judgment and sentence in the Hardin Circuit Court provided that the defendant be taken by the Sheriff of Hardin County, Kentucky, “when ordered by the Court to do so, to the Kentucky State Reformatory at LaGrange, Kentucky, and there confined at hard labor for the period of fifteen (15) years.”

It was further ordered by the Court that the sentence there imposed should not run concurrently with the sentence, or any of them, upon which the defendant was then serving, or was required to, serve in the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City, but it was ordered that service on the judgment of the Hardin Circuit Court should “begin at such time as the defendant may be incarcerated thereupon in the Kentucky State Reformafory, whether that be upon the expiration or satisfaction of the said sentence, the defendant is now serving as aforesaid in the said Indiana State Prison, or his release therefrom, or such time as the Court may hereafter order, * * *

The judgment then directed that Vickery should have credit upon the judgment only for the time actually served in the Kentucky State Reformatory, beginning as of the future time when the defendant should actually be placed in the Reformatory.

The Deputy Sheriff was directed to convey and deliver Vickery back to the' Indiana State'Prison at'Michigan City, Indiana, pursuant to a requisition and extradition under which the said defendant was brought from Indiana to Kentucky for the trial in the Hardin Circuit Court.

Petitioner alleges that he was thereafter returned to the prison in LaPorte County, Indiana, and on August 28, 1952, in a habeas corpus proceeding had in the LaPorte Circuit Court, petitioner was released and discharged from custody of the Indiana State Prison under the judgment of the Vanderburg Circuit Court, because it was the opinion of that Court that in surrendering the custody of the petitioner to the Kentucky authorities, in order that he might be. tried on the indictment in. the Hardin Circuit Court, the State of Indiana had surrendered .jurisdiction, of the. defendant.

The judgment in the habeas corpus proceeding provided, however, that the defendant be surrendered to the Kentucky authorities.

Petitioner alleges that he was transferred on the 31st of January 1953, by agents of the Commonwealth of Kentucky from the LaPorte County jail in LaPorte County, Indiana, to Elizabethtown, Kentucky, and committed finally to the Kentucky State Reformatory at LaGrange, where he is now illegally detained.

Petitioner contends that when the authorities in Kentucky authorized his removal hack to Indiana, for pronouncement of the sentence of the Hardin Circuit Court upon him, that- the return to Indiana with the consent of the Kentucky authorities, operated as a legal pardon-to the same extent, as though he had been handed -a written official .pardon, and that Kentucky thereby legally and forever waived jurisdiction over the petitioner.

Petitioner claims that his present restraint and imprisonment are illegal and in yiolation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. -

The application for a writ is filed under the provisions of Section 2254 of Title 28, U.S.Code. That section provides tfiat the District Court shall not grant the writ unless it appears that the applicant has exhausted the remedies available in the Courts of the State or that there is an absence of State corrective process, of the existence of circumstances rendering'such process ineffective to protect the rights of the prisoner.

There are therefore two questions presented to this Court — (1) Has the applicant exhausted the remedies available to him under State process and (2) Is his present detention in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment to the' Federal Constitution.

[742]*742In the case of Ponzi v. Fessenden, 258 U.S. 254, 42 S.Ct. 309, 310, 66 L.Ed. 607,-the Court said—

■“One accused'of crime has a right to a full and fair trial according to the law of the government whose sovereignty he is alleged to have offended, 'but he has no more than that. He should not be permitted to use the machinery of one sovereignty to obstruct his trial in the courts of the other, unless the necessary operation of such machinery prevents his having a fair trial. He may not complain if one sovereignty waives its strict right to exclusive custody of him for vindication of its laws in order that the other may also subject him to conviction of crime against it.”

It is/ noted in that case that the execution of a- second sentence may be made to commence when the first sentence terminates and Counsel for petitioner has directed the Court tó no authority holding that the judgment of the Kentucky Court, directing that Vickery’s confinement under its sentence-should begin when he was released from his sentence or sentences under which he was then confined in the Indiana Prison, was illegal.

In the case of Frisbie v. Collins, 342 U.S. 519, 522, 72 S.Ct. 509, 96 L.Ed. 541, the Supreme Court reaffirmed the holding in Ker v. People of State of Illinois, 119 U.S. 436, 7 S.Ct. 225, 30 L.Ed. 421, that the power of a court to try a person for crime is not impaired by reason of a “forcible abduction”.

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Related

Ker v. Illinois
119 U.S. 436 (Supreme Court, 1886)
Ponzi v. Fessenden
258 U.S. 254 (Supreme Court, 1922)
Hawk v. Olson
326 U.S. 271 (Supreme Court, 1945)
Darr v. Burford
339 U.S. 200 (Supreme Court, 1950)
Frisbie v. Collins
342 U.S. 519 (Supreme Court, 1952)
Harisiades v. Shaughnessy
342 U.S. 580 (Supreme Court, 1951)
Brown v. Allen
344 U.S. 443 (Supreme Court, 1953)
Morgan v. Horrall
175 F.2d 404 (Ninth Circuit, 1949)
Stamphill v. Johnston
136 F.2d 291 (Ninth Circuit, 1943)
United States Ex Rel. Demarois v. Farrell
87 F.2d 957 (Eighth Circuit, 1937)
State v. McKee
190 So. 325 (Supreme Court of Louisiana, 1939)
Ex parte Rockwell
75 F. Supp. 702 (M.D. Pennsylvania, 1948)
Wing v. Stewart
77 F. Supp. 257 (W.D. Missouri, 1948)

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Bluebook (online)
110 F. Supp. 740, 1953 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3155, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/vickery-v-nall-kywd-1953.