In the Matter of Richard R. Cardwell and Billie Jones

This court has received a document filed jointly by the above mentioned petitioners denominated “Causa Et Origo Est Materia Negotii” stating, “they believe they have a good cause in Causa Et Origo Est Materia Negotii.” They pray that this court “grant this immediate action to insure the rights of petitioners’ indigent circumstances, to show that the laws are for all the nobly born, the well connected and those of grosser clay, in the instant action persons of a different race than the majority of the community.”

Their document cites Black’s Law Dictionary, Coke, the U. S. Code and the Rules of Court of “the English Supreme Court.” It is difficult to translate the document before us to anything more than the statement of these facts:

(a) “Causa Et Origo Est Materia Ne-gotii” is a Latin phrase correctly translated by petitioners as “The cause and origin is the substance of the thing.”

(b) Petitioners, (looking at a certified copy of the amended indictment under which, in the state courts of California, petitioner Cardwell was charged with eight counts of sale of narcotics, and petitioner Jones with two counts of the sale of narcotics, and with one prior narcotic conviction), find…