Burns v. Ohio

The question presented in this case is whether a State may constitutionally require that an indigent defendant in a criminal case pay a filing fee before permitting him to file a motion for leave to appeal in one of its courts.

After a trial in Ohio in 1953, the petitioner was convicted of burglary and sentenced to life imprisonment.1 That same year his conviction was affirmed without opinion by the Ohio Court of Appeals. Petitioner immediately filed a notice of appeal in the Court of Appeals but did nothing further until 1957, when he sought to file a copy of the earlier notice of appeal and…