Butterfield

Appellant is an inmate of the United States penitentiary at McNeil Island. On January 8, 1953, he filed in the court below his petition for the writ of habeas corpus asserting that he had served in full the sentences pursuant to which he had been committed, that the Warden of the penitentiary had misinterpreted the sentences as requiring his continued imprisonment, and that therefore he was entitled to be discharged from custody. In his petition he made no attack upon the validity of the several sentences.

The court was of opinion that appellant’s remedy was not by habeas corpus, but by application to the sentencing courts for correction of his sentences under the provisions of 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255 , and on that ground discharged the writ. The appeal is from this order. We think the court was right in discharging the writ but wrong in respect of the ground given for its action.

The background situation disclosed by the record is this. On September 26, 1949, in Cause No. 15,107 on the criminal docket, appellant pleaded guilty in the United States District Court for New Mexico to a charge of violation of the Dyer Act, 18 U.S.C.A. § 2311 et seq. On that day and in that case sentence…