Edgar M. Hendricks v. Daniel Vasquez, Warden Attorney General of the State of California

Edgar M. Hendricks, a California state prisoner sentenced to death, appeals the district court’s summary dismissal of his petition for a writ of habeas corpus. We reverse and remand.

The facts leading to Hendricks’s conviction and sentence are set forth in People v. Hendricks, 44 Cal.3d 635, 640-41 , 244 Cal.Rptr. 181, 183-84 , 749 P.2d 836, 838-39 (Cal.), cert. denied, 488 U.S. 900 , 109 S.Ct. 247 , 102 L.Ed.2d 236 (1988).

On August 7, 1989, Hendricks filed a 69-page petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal court. Two days later, the district court summarily dismissed Hendricks’s petition, following a brief hearing. The district court addressed none of the fifteen claims asserted in the petition. In conjunction with the summary dismissal, the district court granted Hendricks’s request for a stay of execution and issued a certificate of probable cause to appeal, thereby qualifying the appeal to be filed.

Preliminarily, the respondents contend that the district court was without jurisdiction to consider Hendricks’s petition because, although the petition was signed by Hendricks’s counsel, it was not signed and verified by Hendricks, as required by Rule 2 of the Rules…