United States of America Ex Rel. Harry Baldridge v. Frank J. Pate, Warden

SCHNACKENBERG, Circuit Judge

(concurring).

The foregoing opinion by this court constitutes a practical way to belatedly give to Baldridge the benefits of the Gideon decision. Gideon v. Wainwright, 372 U.S. 335, 83 S.Ct. 792, 9 L.Ed.2d 799 (1963). The showing made by the State *426of Illinois to justify the imprisonment of this man since 1941 is replete with factual inconsistencies and requires the full authority of the district court in the plenary hearing now directed to the end that at this late date it be determined whether at the time he was sentenced he was actually represented by counsel. In the present state of the record it does not appear that he was so represented.