Commonwealth ex rel. Manning v. Rundle

Opinion by

Mr. Chief Justice Bell,

This is an appeal from a denial by the Court of Common Pleas, without a hearing, of a petition for habeas corpus. On March 1, 1960, relator pleaded guilty to murder generally, while represented by two Court-appointed counsel. He was sentenced to ten to twenty years in prison after the Court en banc fixed the crime at second degree murder.

The facts of the homicide were as follows:

On August 28, 1959, while serving a burglary sentence in the Eastern State Penitentiary, relator became involved in an altercation with a fellow convict in the exercise yard and hilled…