forcible abduction

Shirley Collins, serving a life sentence for murder in a Michigan state prison, brought this habeas corpus case in a United States District Court while acting as his own lawyer. His petition alleged that while living in Chicago, Michigan officers forcibly seized, handcuffed, blackjacked and took him to Michigan, and he claimed that trial and conviction under such circumstances violated the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the Federal Kidnaping Act. The District Court denied the writ without a hearing on the ground that the state court had power to try respondent regardless of how presence was procured. The Court of Appeals, one judge dissenting, reversed and remanded the cause for hearing, holding that the Federal Kidnaping Act had changed the prior rule that a state could constitutionally try and convict a defendant after acquiring jurisdiction by force. To review this question the Supreme Court granted certiorari. Before the federal habeas proceedings, Collins had filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the Supreme Court of the State of Michigan which was denied on June 22, 1949. The state later contended that the District Court should have denied relief because respondent had an available state remedy, though the record shows no appearance of the state in the initial federal proceedings. The Court of Appeals found the existence of special circumstances which required prompt federal intervention in this case. The trial court, pointing out that the Michigan Supreme Court had previously denied relief, apparently assumed that no further state corrective process was available and decided against respondent on the merits.