Oyler v. Boles

The petitioners in these consolidated cases are serving life sentences imposed under West Virginia’s habitual criminal statute. This Act provides for a mandatory life sentence upon the third conviction “of a crime punishable by confinement in a penitentiary.”1 The increased penalty is to be invoked by an information filed by the prosecuting attorney “immediately upon conviction and before sentence.”2 Alleging that this Act had been applied without advance notice and to only a minority of those subject to its provisions, in violation respectively of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses…