In Re Backstron

DORAN, J.

The petition alleges that petitioner is “unlawfully restrained of his liberty ... by virtue of a warrant for extradition . . . pursuant to a demand ... by the Governor of the State of Mississippi.”

In substance it is alleged that the conviction in Mississippi was unlawful and in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment in that “petitioner was sentenced by said court by use of a forced confession”; that petitioner was denied counsel; that the judgment, “imposed upon the petitioner cruel and inhuman punishment” in connection with which many details were alleged; that “for this court to render a judgment that will allow the agents of the State of Mississippi to take the petitioner into custody would violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and the United Nations Charter, in that this would constitute state action of the State of California and would di

[501]

rectly cause his return to the State of Mississippi to effectuate a sentence of cruel and inhuman punishment . . . for he, a Negro, has challenged the state of Mississippi, its brutality which is permeated by hatred of the Negro, and its open, vicious and deadly programs of terrorism against the Negro citizen” and that “The action of the Governor of the State of California in issuing the warrant of extradition, and officers of the Sheriff’s Department of Los Angeles, under said warrant, are contrary to the prohibitions of the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, in that they are actions of the State in aid of a violation of constitutional rights guaranteed to him, the petitioner, by the due process clause of the federal constitution.”

Petitioner’s argument, in support of the above contention, relates generally in substance to “the segregated penal system of the State of Mississippi” and the contended legal effect thereof in that the violations of due process, such as a lack of counsel, forced confession, lack of fair trial, sentence to cruel and inhuman punishment, and discrimination “are properly included within the scope of habeas corpus.”

It is well settled that the scope of inquiry in such a proceeding is limited to a determination of the sufficiency of the papers and of the identity of the prisoner. (See 25 Am.Jur., p. 192, § 67; 22 Am.Jur., p. 254, § 15; 39 C.J.S., pp. 549-550, § 29, also p. 562, §39(1).)