Galloway v. Warden

Per Curiam. The applicant was convicted of rape, four rogue and vagabond charges, two assaults with intent to murder, one burglary and an assault with a deadly weapon in the Criminal Court of Baltimore on September 26, 1945. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and a further term of thirty-seven years, to run concurrently with the life sentence. While he took no direct appeal from these judgments, he has filed three petitions for relief under the Post Conviction Procedure Act.

This application for leave to appeal has been filed from the denial on April 13, 1967, of his third petition by Judge Joseph L. Carter in the Criminal Court of Baltimore. In his third petition, the applicant raised these contentions: 1. That applicant’s trial counsel was incompetent in failing to obey his request for a jury trial, in failing to call certain witnesses, and was biased against the applicant. 2. That he was denied his right to a jury trial by his counsel’s insistence on making the decision to have a court trial. 3.

That he was denied due process because he could not com ⁴⁶⁹ prehend the legal procedures involved before and during his trial. 4. That he was denied his right of appeal because of procrastination on the part of his attorney in filing the appeal, and was given improper advice by him. 5. That the court denied him the right to fire his attorney, although he tried to do so. 6. That he was denied his right to a trial transcript in order to prepare his post conviction appeal. 7.

That he was denied due process because he was without funds to locate alibi witnesses and had no power of subpoena to locate witnesses. 8. That he was denied due process because of the systematic exclusion of Negroes from the Grand Jury. 9. That he was denied a fair and impartial lawyer. 10. That he was unlawfully arrested and searched. 11.

That his testimony in the trial transcript was inaccurate. After conducting an evidentiary hearing, at which the petitioner was present with his attorney, and testified, Judge Carter denied the petition for the reason that the contentions therein raised had either been finally litigated or waived in prior proceedings taken to secure relief under the Act, and hence were without merit. Judge Carter held, additionally, that despite petitioner’s testimony at the post conviction hearing to the effect that he did not testify at his trial, a copy of the transcript thereof showed that he did in fact so testify. Our examination of the proceedings convinces us that Judge Carter correctly disposed of the various allegations set forth in applicant’s third petition.

The record indicates that applicant’s first