MR. JUSTICE MURPHY delivered the opinion of the Court.
Petitioner seeks to review an order of the Supreme Court of Kansas denying his application for writ of habeas corpus. In 1935 petitioner was convicted by a jury in a Kansas state court upon an information charging him
On November 20, 1941, petitioner, a layman acting in his own behalf, filed an original application for writ of habeas corpus in the Supreme Court of Kansas. The crude allegations of this application charge that his imprisonment was the result of a deprivation of rights guaranteed him by the Constitution of the United States, in that the Kansas prosecuting authorities obtained his conviction by the presentation of testimony known to be perjured, and by the suppression of testimony favorable to him. Filed with this application were a brief and an abstract, also apparently prepared by petitioner himself, which are part of the record before us. These documents elaborate the general charges of the application, and specifically allege that "one Truman Reynolds was coerced and threatened by the State to testify falsely against the petitioner and that said testimony did harm to the petitioner's defense"; that "one Lacy Cunningham who had been previously committed to a mental institution was threatened with prosecution if he did not testify for the State"; that the testimony of one Roy Riley, material to petitioner's defense, "was repressed under threat and coercion by the State"; that Mrs. Roy Riley and Mrs. Thelma Richardson were intimidated and their testimony suppressed; and, that the record in the trial of one Merl Hudson for complicity in the same murder and robbery for which petitioner was convicted, held about six months after petitioner's direct appeal from his conviction, reveals that the evidence there presented is inconsistent with the evidence presented at petitioner's trial, and clearly exonerates petitioner.
In connection with his application, petitioner moved for the appointment of counsel to represent him, for subpoenas duces tecum to bring up the records in the trials of Merl Hudson and one Bert (Bud) Richardson, for the subpoenaing of certain witnesses allegedly material to his case, and for his presence in court. The record does not show what disposition, if any, was made of these various motions.
No return was made to the application for the writ. On December 11, 1941, the court below entered an order "that said petition be filed and docketed without costs, and thereupon, after due consideration by the court, it is ordered that said petition for writ of habeas corpus be denied." There was no opinion. A motion to rehear was also denied without opinion. We brought the case here on certiorari, 316 U.S. 654, because of the constitutional issues involved.
Habeas corpus is a remedy available in the courts of Kansas to persons imprisoned in violation of rights guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States. Cochran v. Kansas, 316 U.S. 255, 258. Petitioner's papers are
Reversed.
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