(Download) "Oyler v. Boles" by Supreme Court of the United States ~ eBook PDF Kindle ePub Free
eBook details
- Title: Oyler v. Boles
- Author : Supreme Court of the United States
- Release Date : January 19, 1962
- Genre: Law,Books,Professional & Technical,
- Pages : * pages
- Size : 60 KB
Description
The petitioners in these consolidated cases are serving life sentences imposed under West Virginias habitual criminal statute. This Act provides for a mandatory life sentence upon the third conviction "of a crime punishable by confinement in a penitentiary." The increased penalty is to be invoked by an information filed by the prosecuting attorney "immediately upon conviction and before sentence." Alleging that this Act had been applied without advance notice and to only a minority of those subject to its provisions, in violation respectively of the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment, the petitioners filed separate petitions for writs of habeas corpus in the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia. Both of their petitions were denied without opinion. Unlike Chewning v. Cunningham, ante, p. 443, here each of the petitioners was represented by counsel at the time he was sentenced. Finding the cases representative of the many recidivist cases that have been docketed in this Court the past few Terms, we granted certiorari. 365 U.S. 810. We now affirm the judgment in each case.