John Lee v. Paul J. Madigan, Warden, Federal Penitentiary, Alcatraz, California

This is an appeal from a denial of a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. Petitioner is in the custody of the Warden of Alcatraz Prison by virtue of a judgment and sentence of a General Court-Martial approved September 13, 1949. Petitioner was sentenced originally to death. Thereafter the sentence was reduced to life imprisonment.

The crime of conspiracy to commit murder, of which petitioner was convicted, occurred on June 10, 1949, at the Disciplinary Barracks at Camp Cook, California. Petitioner was then serving a sentence imposed by a previous court-martial in Paris, France, of twenty years at hard labor for robbery and assault. Those offenses were committed while petitioner was in the Army. After his Paris court-martial and sentence petitioner was dishonorably discharged from the Army on June 12, 1947.

This is the second time petitioner has been before this Court. In 1954, petitioner took an appeal from a District Court order dismissing his petition for a writ of habeas corpus as being prematurely brought. We affirmed that order. Lee v. Swope, 9 Cir., 1955, 225 F.2d 674 . Thereafter the Army Clemency Board remitted the unexpired portion of petitioner’s first sentence so…