Chavis v. North Carolina

WINTER, Circuit Judge:

Mike’s Grocery Store in Wilmington, North Carolina, was firebombed and burned on February 6, 1971, and the perpetrators of that crime, using various weapons, fired upon the firemen and policemen attempting to extinguish the fire. Benjamin F. Chavis and his nine co-petitioners were variously convicted in the Superior Court of Pender County, North Carolina, of felonious burning of that property and conspiracy to assault emergency personnel at the scene of the burning.1 Their appeals and post-conviction challenges to the validity of their convictions were decided adversely…