In Re Drake

In his petition for a writ of habeas corpus, Roy Drake, an inmate of Folsom Prison, alleges that in 1943 he was sentenced to imprisonment on his plea of guilty to two charges of first degree robbery. Seven months later, he and three other convicts escaped. The following year, in Mississippi, he was sentenced to imprisonment for 100 years for robbery with firearms.

Drake asserts that as a prisoner of Mississippi he was subjected to brutal and inhuman treatment on a prison farm. According to his petition, in 1947 the Governor of Mississippi asked the California prison authorities whether they…