Garcia v. Steele (193 F.2d 276, 1951)

SANBORN, Circuit Judge.

The question presented by this appeal, prosecuted in forma pauperis, from an order dismissing the appellant’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus, is whether, a federal prisoner confined in the United States Medical Center for Federal Prisoners at Springfield, Missouri, who asserts that he is sane and therefore not a suitable subject for hospitalization in that institution, can require the District Court to determine whether his confinement therein is legal and whether he is entitled to be transferred by the Attorney General to some penal or correctional institution.

The question has been admirably and painstakingly briefed and argued on behalf of the appellant by counsel who was appointed by this Court to represent him on this appeal.

The appellant prepared his own petition for a writ of habeas corpus, which was filed January 12, 1951. While the petition is disconnected and informal, it sufficiently shows that the appellant claims to be sane and for that reason an unsuitable subject for confinement among the insane at the Medical Center. The appellant does not attack the legality of his sentence of imprisonment, which was imposed by the District Court of the District of Columbia on July 16, 1948, upon appellant’s plea of guilty to a charge of grand larceny. He was transferred, by order of the Attorney General, to the Medical Center from the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, on June 28, 1950, in conformity with § 4241, Title 18 U.S.C. While at Leavenworth he was in the neuro-psychopathic ward of the prison hospital, and upon his arrival at the Medical Center he was placed in a psychopathic ward of that institution. The certificate of the Board of Examiners at the United States Penitentiary at Leavenworth, upon which the Attorney General based his order of transfer, is not set out in the petition of the appellant, but a copy of a letter, dated November 24, 1950, from the Clinical Director