United States of America Ex Rel. John Kirk v. Director, Department of Corrections, State of Illinois

ESCHBACH, Circuit Judge.

In this appeal from the denial of a state prisoner’s petition for habeas corpus, we are called upon to decide whether the rule forbidding trial judges from inquiring as to the jury’s numerical division, enunciated by the Supreme Court in Brasfield v. United States, 272 U.S. 448, 47 S.Ct. 135, 71 L.Ed. 345 (1926), is binding on the states through the Fourteenth Amendment, or whether it is merely an exercise of the Supreme Court’s supervisory jurisdiction over federal courts. We conclude that it is the latter and affirm the district court’s judgment denying the petition.

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