Smith v. Warden

The applicant, Eugene Quinton Smith, was tried in December, 1957, before two judges of the Circuit Court for Montgomery County, sitting without a jury, and was found guilty of murder in the first degree. In January, 1958, sentence of life imprisonment was imposed.

His second amended petition under the Uniform Post Con*622viction Procedure Act sought a belated appeal and alleged as the only basis for relief that “the petitioner at the time of conviction and sentencing was ignorant and illiterate and unable to perfect his right of appeal.” At the hearing on this petition before Judge Pugh both of…