Stout v. Hancock

PARKER, Circuit Judge.

This is an appeal from an order in a habeas corpus proceeding directing Colonel Stout, the Commanding Officer of the Greenville Army Air Base, to release from custody one Hancock, who had been convicted by general court-martial of the crime of rape and sentenced to life imprisonment. The ground of the order releasing Hancock was that only six of the eight members of the general court-martial had voted for his conviction, the court holding that this amounted to an acquittal. The only question in the case is whether a unanimous verdict of the court-martial is required in a…