EX PARTE PAUL

EX PARTE PAUL
1951 OK CR 15
227 P.2d 422
93 Okl.Cr. 300
Case Number: A-11503
Decided: 01/31/1951
Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals

(Syllabus.)

1. Habeas Corpus. Prisoner was not entitled to release on habeas corpus on ground that he was "inveigled" by the prosecuting authorities to make a confession and was not allowed counsel, in absence of supporting affidavits setting out facts by persons in position to know, that would justify this court in issuing an order to show cause. Particularly is this true where the records in the office of the Pardon and Parole Board show that the prisoner, prior to the confession, had been convicted of other crimes and was a mature person and experienced in court affairs.

2. Same Right to Relief by Habeas Corpus Lost by Laches. Where trial occurred twenty-four years previously, prisoner's right to relief by habeas corpus because of alleged absence of representation by counsel and being "inveigled" by prosecuting authorities to confess was lost by laches.

3. Same Right to Relief May Be Lost by Laches. The right to relief by habeas corpus may be lost by laches where the petition for habeas corpus is delayed for twenty-four years and the facts surrounding the pronouncement of the judgment which is the basis for the relief sought have become matters of speculation based upon the memory of man.

Original proceeding in habeas corpus by Jess D. Paul to secure his release from confinement in the State Penitentiary. Writ denied.

Jess D. Paul, pro se.

Mac Q. Williamson, Atty. Gen., and Sam H. Lattimore, Asst. Atty. Gen., for respondent.

POWELL, J.

The petitioner, Jess D. Paul, seeks by writ of habeas corpus to obtain his release from the State Penitentiary at McAlester, where he is at the present time serving a life sentence for murder. The judgment of conviction and sentence was entered by the district

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court of Washington county, Oklahoma, on July 15, 1926, upon a plea of guilty by petitioner.

The petition sets out that in ignorance he was inveigled by the prosecuting authorities to enter a plea of guilty; that the court knew that he was not guilty, etc. The petition is not verified and is not supported by affidavits or documentary proof, and shows on its face to be barred by laches on the part of petitioner, some twenty-four years having elapsed since his conviction and prior to his petition. Ex parte Workman, 89 Okla. Cr. 289, 207 P.2d 361, Ex parte Owens, 88 Okla. Cr. 346, 203 P.2d 447; Ex parte Cole, 89 Okla. Cr. 380, 208 P.2d 193; Ex parte Motley, 86 Okla. Cr. 401, 193 P.2d 613.

The files in the office of the Pardon and Parole Board show that this petitioner served seven to ten years in the penitentiary in Arkansas for burglary and robbery, and was released in 1923. On November 4, 1925, he entered the penitentiary at McAlester to serve a sentence of fifteen years, on a conviction of conjoint robbery in Bryan county. He was charged in Bartlesville, Washington county, with murder, and while in the penitentiary serving the fifteen-year term was taken from the penitentiary to that county for trial, entered a plea of guilty, and was sentenced to life imprisonment, his sentence to begin at the completion of the fifteen-year sentence he was then serving. He completed the fifteen-year term on February 8, 1933, and was booked in on the life term the same day. He escaped from the penitentiary at McAlester on August 23, 1933, and was arrested in Oregon on October 19, 1933, for bank robbery with firearms, but returned to Oklahoma on November 12, 1933. He was paroled in Oklahoma on January 29, 1948, but his parole was revoked March 27, 1950, after his arrest in Oklahoma

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county on a charge of burglary in the second degree, alleged to have been committed at Edmond. He was arraigned on this charge and entered a plea of not guilty, and has not been tried.

Conclusions are mainly alleged in the petition, and the petition is insufficient to entitle the petitioner to the writ, and, under the facts set out, comes too late.

The writ is denied.

BRETT, P.J., and JONES, J., concur.