James Burl Johnson v. Donald W. Wyrick, Warden, Missouri State Penitentiary, Jefferson City, Missouri

Petitioner James Burl Johnson, a prisoner in the Missouri State Penitentiary, appeals from the District Court’s 1 denial of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. In its memorandum opinion the District Court reviewed the extensive history of petitioner’s successive direct and collateral attacks on his 1954 conviction and forty-year sentence for rape. That history, which includes eight previous federal habeas corpus petitions disposed of in the Western District of Missouri, need not be repeated here. Seven grounds were asserted by petitioner in support of his claim that his conviction and…