Eugene L. Crow v. Frank A. Eyman, Warden, Arizona State Prison

Eugene Crow was convicted by an Arizona jury on two counts of murder in the first degree and on one count of assault with intent to commit murder. He appealed to the state supreme court, which affirmed his convictions. State v. Crow, 104 Ariz. 579 , 457 P.2d 256 (1969). He then brought this petition for a writ of habeas corpus under 28 U. S.C. § 2254. The district judge denied the petition. We affirm.

Crow challenges his conviction on four separate grounds all of which were raised before the Arizona Supreme Court. He first alleges that the evidence at his trial was insufficient to support a conviction for first degree murder. The state supreme court’s determination that the evidence was sufficient is presumed to be correct unless the appellant establishes that the state fact-finding process was deficient in one of the ways specified by 28 U.S.C. § 2254 (d). Crow has made no such showing.

Moreover, the sufficiency of the evidence in a state court cannot be reviewed by a writ of habeas corpus under § 2254, unless the appellant establishes that the record is “so totally devoid of evidentiary support as to render his conviction unconstitutional under the Due Process Clause of the…