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220 Ga. 405

139 S.E.2d 306

Balkcom v. Hurst

Supreme Court of Georgia

Decided November 5, 1964

Supreme Court of Georgia · decided 1964-11-05

Key passage — most relied on by later courts

“[a] writ of habeas corpus looks only to the lawfulness of the present confinement.”

quoted by 1 later decision, including 347 Ga. App. 757 - DAVIS v. the STATE.

Relies on Mullennix v. Balkcom · Balkcom v. Craton · Pippin v. Sheffield

Good law ✅— No negative treatment on recordhow we know

Decided 1964-11-05

How this case has been cited

Cited by 12 later decisions — most recently October 2018

12 state decisions

60196419701980199020002010decided

Later decisions citing this case, by decade. The current decade is in progress, and our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so the latest bars are undercounted — not a real decline.

View the full empirical analysis of this case →

Quillian, Justice.

¶1 Walter E. Hurst brought his petition for habeas corpus in the City Court of Reidsville against R. P. Balkcom, Warden of the Georgia State Prison. The petitioner contends that sentences which he was serving from three counties, Richmond, Bulloch and Johnson, were void because he had been deprived of counsel and of a commitment hearing, both in violation of his rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. After the hearing, the trial judge issued- an order that sentences from the three named counties were “declared null and void,” but that the petitioner was remanded to the custody of the respondent “for the reason that it further appears [the petitioner] is presently serving sentences from other counties which he is not attacking in this proceeding." Respondent excepts to and assigns as error that portion of the final judgment declaring the sentences from Richmond, Bulloch and Johnson counties void. Held:

¶2 “A writ of habeas corpus looks only to the lawfulness of the present confinement.” Mullennix v. Balkcom, 213 Ga. 490 (99 SE2d 832); Pippin v. Sheffield, 220 Ga. 179 (137 SE2d 627). Where it is unquestioned that the detention of the petitioner under sentences from other counties is legal, the trial judge has no authority to make any other disposition of the matter except to remand the petitioner to the custody of the respondent. Balkcom v. Craton, 220 Ga. 216 (138 SE2d 163). In the case sub judice, after finding the petitioner’s present de *406 tention to be legal, the judge was without authority to hold the sentences from Richmond, Bulloch and Johnson counties void. Hence, that portion of the order declaring those sentences void must be

Submitted October 13, 1964 Decided November 5, 1964. Eugene Cook, Attorney General, Peyton Hawes, Jr., Albert Sidney Johnson, Assistant Attorneys General, B. Daniel Dubberly, Jr., Deputy Assistant Attorney General, for plaintiff in error. Walter E. Hurst, pro se.

¶3 Reversed.

All the Justices concur.
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