State Ex Rel. Henderson v. Russell

OPINION

WALKER, Presiding Judge.

The petitioner below, Willie Lee Henderson, appeals from the dismissal of his petition for habeas corpus after an evidentiary hearing.

The petitioner, a Negro, has previously filed petitions in state and federal courts but he says that this is the first one raising the question that there had been systematic exclusion of his race from the grand jury which indicted him and the petit jury which convicted him.

In 1948 the petitioner, represented by retained counsel, entered a plea of guilty to murder in the first degree and was sentenced to 99 years in the…