Thomas P. McGuinn v. Roger W. Crist, Warden of Montana State Penitentiary

This is an appeal from the grant by the district court of the appellant’s second petition for a writ of habeas corpus. We reverse and direct that the petition be denied.

I. FACTS

Thomas McGuinn was convicted of committing deliberate homicide on Mrs. LaRae Alley by shooting her four times in the head with a revolver. Appellee McGuinn appealed to the Montana Supreme Court, but his conviction was affirmed and his petition for a rehearing was denied. McGuinn v. State, 177 Mont. 215 , 581 P.2d 417 (1978). It was only after his conviction that appellee contested the jury instruction given at his trial. Appellee’s challenge was based on Sandstrom v. Montana, 442 U.S. 510 , 99 S.Ct. 2450 , 61 L.Ed.2d 39 (1979), which disapproved the same jury instruction given in appellee’s trial, /. e., “The law presumes that a person intends the ordinary consequences of his voluntary acts.” The appellee’s challenge to this instruction was raised for the first time at his initial petition to the district court for a writ of habeas corpus. That petition was denied without prejudice to enable appellee to exhaust his state remedies. When appellee had exhausted these remedies, the district court granted…