eBook details
- Title: Application of Kinnison
- Author : Court of Criminal Appeals of Oklahoma
- Release Date : January 11, 1959
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 58 KB
Description
1 This is an original action in habeas corpus by Paula Helen Kinnison, petitioner, wherein she alleges she is being held as a prisoner at the state penitentiary under a void judgment made and entered in the District Court of Okmulgee County, Oklahoma, on September 2, 1958, on a charge of murdering her grandmother, and upon her plea of guilty she was sentenced to fifty years imprisonment. The petition alleges that petitioner had never been arrested before; was not experienced in such matters; and was not aware of her constitutional right to aid of counsel; that she was frightened and irrational almost to the point of hysteria; that she was threatened with the electric chair but would get a break to plead guilty and avoid the electric chair; she was dissuaded from taking a court appointed attorney on the representation they were never any good. She was further informed the jury would be picked from the town of Morris, Oklahoma, where the crime was committed, and she was informed that both her father and uncle would testify against her. Moreover, she alleges she was rehearsed on the questions the judge would ask her and what her answers should be. Finally, she alleges that she attempted to contact her attorney, Mr. J.I. Pitchford, who was out of the state, and she was denied the opportunity to contact him although it would have entailed a delay of only two days. She asserts that she did contact Mr. Pitchford as soon as she could, which was when she was delivered to the penitentiary. She says the proceedings, under the circumstances, denied her not only the aid of counsel but trial by jury and by reason thereof, the trial court was never completed and lost jurisdiction of the matter.