William B. Donlavey v. S. Lamont Smith, Warden, Georgia State Prison, Reidsville, Georgia

Petitioner, a state prisoner, was arrested for burglary of a grocery store, tried by a jury and convicted. He contends on this petition for habeas corpus: (1) that he was deprived of a fair trial because poor people were systematically excluded from the jury list, (2) that he was denied his right to counsel at the preliminary hearing, and (3) that his arrest was void ab initio because he was held incommunicado for 68 hours before being arraigned.

The jury which convicted the petitioner was “selected from the books of the tax receiver” pursuant to Georgia Code, Section 59-106. The petitioner…