Byler v. State

George Rose Smith, Justice.

This is a Rule 1 petition by which the appellant Byler seeks to withdraw his plea of guilty to a charge of second-degree murder, on the grounds that he did not validly waive the assistance of counsel and did not intelligently and voluntarily enter the plea of guilty. The Honorable John L. Anderson, circuit judge, accepted the plea after a brief hearing on April 4, 1973. The Honorable Elmo Taylor, circuit judge, denied Byier’s Rule 1 petition after a more extensive hearing on February 2, 1974. This appeal is from the latter order.

We defer for the moment a statement…