Leopold Joseph Doran v. Lawrence E. Wilson, Warden, San Quentin Prison

Doran pleaded guilty in California Superior Court to a charge of burglary, second degree (Cal.Pen.C. § 459). He was committed, on February 24, 1964, to the California Rehabilitation Center at Riverside, pursuant to former Cal.Pen. C. § 6451, now Cal.Welf. & Inst.Code § 3051. Less than a month later, he sought habeas corpus from the California courts and was released and remanded to the court in which he was convicted. He was then, on June 23, 1964, sentenced for the term prescribed by law. He is now serving that sentence.

On September 7, 1965, he filed in the United States District Court a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. He has exhausted his state remedies. The court denied the petition without a hearing and Doran appeals.

The petition, like most prisoner documents, is not artfully drawn, but it is better than most of them. We quote in the margin those of its allegations that can be said to be factual rather than merely argumentative. We think that these allegations amount, in substance, to a claim that his confession was coerced, both because of the circumstances under which it was obtained and because of his being under the influence of drugs, and that his guilty plea…