Lonnie Mitchell v. Dan D. Stephens, Superintendent of Arkansas State Penitentiary

BLACKMUN, Circuit Judge.

Again we are confronted with a habeas corpus attack on an Arkansas state court conviction and death sentence for interracial rape. The case presents issues which, in this day, are sensitive. Some of them are similar to those we have considered recently in Bailey v. Henslee, 287 F.2d 936 (8 Cir. 1961), cert. denied 368 U.S. 877, 82 S.Ct. 121, 7 L.Ed.2d 78; Henslee v. Stewart, 311 F.2d 691 (8 Cir. 1963), cert. denied 373 U.S. 902, 83 S.Ct. 1289, 10 L.Ed.2d 198; and Maxwell v. Stephens, 348 F.2d 325 (8 Cir. 1965), cert. denied 86 S.Ct. 387.

Lonnie Mitchell, Jr., a Negro…