In Re Noyes

The petitioner, who is confined in the Folsom state prison on a judgment of conviction and sentence for the crime of statutory rape, has, in propria persona, presented to me an application, by way of a petition, to be released from said imprisonment on the ground that he was denied a fair and lawful hearing before the committing magistrate who preliminarily examined the charge against him and committed him for trial therefor to the superior court, in that the said magistrate refused, upon the request of the petitioner, to issue subpoenas for certain witnesses and thus require them to appear and testify at the preliminary hearing in his behalf. Accompanying the petition and made a part thereof is a transcript of the proceedings of the preliminary hearing of the charge before said magistrate.

The refusal to issue a subpoena for witnesses by a committing magistrate or even the refusal to cause one to be issued for a like purpose by the superior court is not a ground for the release of a prisoner on habeas corpus. Discretion in that regard may be abused and error thereby committed, and thus a person examined or on trial on a criminal charge deprived of a lawful hearing or trial, but…