Smith v. Breazeale

CLAYTON, District Judge.

Petitioner, William Smith, Jr., a Negro, was convicted on 25 September, 1961, in the Circuit Court of Madison County, Mississippi, of the crime of rape and sentenced to death. He has petitioned this court for a writ of habeas corpus, alleging that his conviction deprived him of due process and equal protection of the laws in that Negroes were systematically excluded from the grand and petit juries which indicted and tried him, that he was denied the effective assistance of counsel and that the conviction was the product of an involuntary confession and the admission of…