Edward Lee Clemmons v. United States

ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

On November 18,1977, appellant Edward Lee Clemmons escaped from the Missouri State Penitentiary, where he had served almost eight years of a twenty-year sentence for first-degree robbery. On January 17, 1978, after being captured and returned to state custody, he was indicted on three federal counts of interstate extortion, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 875(b) and 912. The United States brought the charges to trial in February 1978; a mistrial was declared on March 1, 1978, when the jury could not agree.

Clemmons then pleaded guilty to Count I of the indictment on April 7,…