Dickson, superintendent of the California state prison at Tehachapi, California, appeals from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of California, Northern Division, granting the application of Glenn Castle, appellee, a prisoner in said state prison, for a writ of habeas corpus.

It appears from the record that appel-lee on September 30, 1949, was charged in the Superior Court of the State of California in and for the County of Orange with issuing a bank check with *666 intent to defraud. Upon appellee’s plea of guilty the court imposed the following judgment:

Appellee’s application for probation was denied. Thereafter appellee served his sentence in the county jail, and on December 23, 1949, was released from custody. The minutes of the court on that date read:

Thereafter on July 6, 1951, the court issued a bench warrant for appellee's arrest, in which it was stated that suspension of appellee’s commitment to San Quentin “is hereby revoked”, and on August 6, 1951, the judgment, the validity of which is attacked in this proceeding, was entered. This judgment reads in pertinent part as follows:

Appellee’s contention, which was accepted by the court below, is that the “suspended commitment to San Quentin for ten years” with the denial of probation was a nullity under California law, and therefore that the purported revocation of the suspension and the judgment of August 6, 1951, ordering his imprisonment in the state penitentiary was void and deprived him of his liberty in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. For the reasons which follow we do not reach the merits of this contention.

It appears that while appellee had been notified of the proceeding in the court on August 6, 1951, at which this judgment was issued, he was not present nor was he represented by counsel.

Subsequent to the submission of this appeal to this court it appears that ap-pellee was unconditionally released from the custody of appellant by order of the California Adult Authority.

The initial question presented, therefore, is whether this appeal is moot. We hold that under the rule announced by the Supreme Court in Pollard v. United States, 1957, 352 U.S. 354, 358 , 77 S.Ct. 481 , 1 L.Ed.2d 393 , it is not, and we therefore proceed to consider the issues presented by this appeal.

The district court found that although appellee had applied for a writ of habeas corpus from the California Supreme Court, he had not sought certiorari from its denial thereof, which is normally a prerequisite to the filing of an application for the writ of habeas corpus in a federal court except in the “few” cases of special circumstances of which examples are given. Darr v. Burford, 1950, 339 U.S. 200, 210 , 70 S.Ct. 587 , 94 L.Ed. 761 . The court found, however, that there were such “special circumstances” present in this case which excused appel-lee from this requirement.

The only such circumstance indicated in the record or referred to in the opinion of the court below is that appellee had been imprisoned for five years on a judgment he considered void.

Assuming this to be the case, we are unable to see how his failure to apply for *667 the issuance of the writ of certiorari from the United States Supreme Court, after the State Supreme Court had denied his petition for the writ of habeas corpus, or how his delay in applying to the United States District Court for the writ of habeas corpus, constitutes special circumstances rendering such process (State remedies) ineffective to protect the rights of the prisoner. Section 2254 reads as follows:

It is settled law that the right to apply for the writ of certiorari is a part of the State remedies. A person convicted in a State Court cannot circumvent the effect of such settled law by delaying his petition to the Federal Court past the time for applying to the United States Supreme Court for the writ of certiorari as to the State habeas corpus decision. There is no claim that the basis of petitioner’s claim was discovered by him too late to go to the United States Supreme Court for the writ of certiorari.

In almost every application for habeas corpus the ground asserted is that the judgment under which the applicant is imprisoned is, for one reason or another, void. If the requirement of Darr v. Burford has any meaning, this cannot constitute the special circumstances referred to in that case.

The judgment is reversed and the cause remanded with directions to dismiss.