Jack Austin York v. Ray H. Page, Warden, Oklahoma State Penitentiary, and the State of Oklahoma

BREITENSTEIN, Circuit Judge.

The district court denied habeas corpus relief to petitioner-appellant York, a prisoner in the Oklahoma penitentiary, who was found guilty in state court of first degree manslaughter and whose conviction was affirmed by the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals. See York v. State, Okl.Cr., 449 P.2d 927. The appellant asserts that his due process rights under the Fourteenth Amendment were violated by an unforeseeable and inconsistent construction of an Oklahoma criminal statute.

At a sordid party, the details of which are best omitted, appellant, a previously convicted…