Odell v. Hudspeth‪.‬

On October 3, 1946, appellant, Lawson Odell, was convicted in the District Court of Barber County, Kansas, of murder in the first degree and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Kansas State Penitentiary. No appeal was taken and the judgment and sentence became final. Habeas corpus proceedings were thereafter instituted and denied in the State Court of Kansas and his petition for writ of certiorari was denied in the United States Supreme Court, 334 U.S. 851, 68 S. Ct. 1504, 92 L. Ed. 1773. Appellant then filed this proceeding in the United States District Court for the District of Kansas contending that his detention was unlawful because his conviction had been obtained in violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The District Court entertained the petition and after full hearing denied the relief on the grounds that the evidence failed to sustain the allegations of lack of due process. This appeal followed.