Gary Wayne Baker v. Jack Cowley, Warden

EBEL, Circuit Judge.

We grant the appellant’s application for certificate of probable cause.

The issue we decide 1 is whether an Oklahoma second degree murder statute that requires the imposition of a mandatory indeterminate sentence of ten years to life upon conviction violates the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments of the United States Constitution. We hold that it does not.

FACTS

Petitioner-appellant, Gary Baker, was convicted of second degree murder in Oklahoma state court in 1975. Under the statute then in force, Okla.Stat. Ann. tit. 21, § 701.4, Baker received a mandatory inde terminate…