Chavez

Manuel Joe Chavez and Clyde Bates, state prisoners under sentence of death, appeal from district court orders denying their applications for habeas corpus. Separate orders of denial were entered and separate appeals have been taken. The district court however, considered the applications together, and we will do likewise on these appeals.

Appellants were jointly tried in the Superior Court of Los Angeles County on six counts charging felony-murder in violation of California Penal Code, § 189, and one count charging wilful and malicious burning of a building not a parcel of a dwelling, contrary to California Penal Code, § 448a. Each was convicted on all counts, the convictions for violation of section 189 being designated by the jury as first degree murder. The convictions were thereafter affirmed by the California Supreme Court. People v. Chavez, 50 Cal.2d 778 , 329 P.2d 907 , cer-tiorari denied, Chavez v. California, 358 U.S. 946 , 79 S.Ct. 356 , 3 L.Ed.2d 353 .

*730 The charges and convictions grew out of an occurrence on April 4, 1957, when gasoline and lighted matches were thrown on the floor of the Mecca bar in Los Angeles. Six persons died in the resulting explosion and…