Johnnie Ray Grimsley v. Ray M. Dodson, Sheriff J. Marshall Coleman, Attorney General of Virginia

The court holds that the grant of a writ of habeas corpus to Johnnie Ray Grimsley was incorrect. Because the Supreme Court’s decision in Stone v. Powell, 428 U.S. 465, 96 S.Ct. 3037, 49 L.Ed.2d 1067 (1976), forbade precisely the type of federal collateral review of state court determinations engaged in by the district court, I concur in the judgment of the court. I write separately to indicate my disagreement with what I perceive to be a misreading of our decision in United States v. Workman, 585 F.2d 1205 (1978).

I

In late 1979, Grimsley was on probation pursuant to his multiple convictions in…