United States of America Ex Rel. James Morris Fletcher v. Angelo C. Cavell, Warden, Western State Penitentiary, Pittsburgh 33, Pennsylvania

McLAUGHLIN, Circuit Judge.

Appellant was convicted of murder in the Court of Oyer and Terminer of Greene County, Pennsylvania in December, 1954. He was sentenced to life imprisonment. The conviction was affirmed, by the Supreme Court of that state, Commonwealth v. Fletcher, 387 Pa. 602, 128 A.2d 897 and certiorari denied by the-Supreme Court of the United States, 354 U.S. 913, 77 S.Ct. 1300, 1 L.Ed.2d 1429,. After that he filed a petition for a writ, of habeas corpus in the district court on which a hearing was allowed.

At that hearing, (October 3, 1959), it was undisputed that in the course of…