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Show IMEWHINNEY CASE " TO BE APPEALED Salt Lake. Maj 26 First steps to- I ward an appeal to the United States supreme court in an effort to Save the life of Harley Mewhinney. con victed murderer of C L. Brickson were taken yesterday by S. P. Arm-strong, Arm-strong, his attorney, who applied to lh" chief justice of the 3tate supreme court for a writ of error on which to base the appeal. The writ was denied by Chief Jus tice. W. M. MeCortv. Attorney Arm strong announced immediately there j after that he would apply dlrecl to the supreme court at Washington for permission to appeal. In Case that permission Is granted b:fore Mewhinney Mewhin-ney faces the executioners he will 1 have another fairly extended lease on life while the court of last resort passed on his case, i Until that permission is granted however, the proceedings against Me whinney are not stayed. He is scheduled sched-uled to come before the district court within the next few days to be resentenced re-sentenced to death. . In his appeal to the highest courl ,'in the land. Attorney Armstrong will argue that the constitutional right ot jhls client was abridged by Hip trial court when it instructed the jury that it must find Mewhinney guilty of first degree murder or else acquit him By failing to instruct as to the les ser degree of murder and manslaug'. ter. Armstrong avers, the court undertook un-dertook to pass upon the facte in the case instead of allowing the junto jun-to do so. lu that particular the trial court is alleged to have infringed upon the right of Mewhinney to a jury trial as guaranteed under the United States constitution. Before Mewhinney '3 case will be admitted to the United States supreme su-preme court thai court will first determine de-termine whether they are any Issues involved on which it has jurisdiction to pass Attorney Armstrong will rest his case mainly on the conten lion cited This Is said to be the first case of a man sentenced to death in Utah appealing to the national tribunal Mewhinney's fight for life is with out parallel in Utah He Was convicted con-victed of murder in the first degree for killing Erickson while attempting to rob a salesman in n local room ing house nearly four jears ago. His defense was that of temporary In sanity, superinduced by ef ..Ssie use of drugs. He appealed to the su preme court and the judgment ot death was affirmed. Then he appealed ap-pealed again, citing the same argu ment as that which Is 10 be cited before be-fore the supreme court Again his appeal was futile Still not content, his attorney petitioned for a rehear ing. This, too, was denied. |
