Stewart Saunders, Jr. v. J. D. Cox, Etc.

We granted a certificate of probable cause to review the correctness of the district court’s denial of a writ of habeas corpus. In addition to the issues decided by the district court (principally those raised by a reconstruction hearing under Kemplen v. Maryland, 428 F.2d 169 (4 Cir. 1970)), we invited counsel to brief and argue the question of whether the imposition of an aggregate sentence of eighty years upon a seventeen-year-old defendant following his pleas of guilty to three charges of robbery was constitutionally excessive under the facts of this case.

Our review of the record…