Chessman v. Teets

Petitioner applied to the United States District Court, Northern District of California, Southern Division, for a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that his automatic appeal to the California Supreme Court from a conviction for a capital offense had been heard upon a fraudulently prepared transcript of the trial proceedings. The official court reporter had died before completing the transcription of his stenographic notes of the trial, and petitioner alleges that the prosecuting attorney and the substitute reporter selected by him had, by corrupt arrangement, prepared the fraudulent transcript.…