Hodges v. United States (368 U.S. 139)/Opinion of the Court

We brought this case here upon the understanding that the question it presented was whether the District Court should have accorded petitioner a hearing under 28 U.S.C. § 2255, 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255, when it appeared that no appeal had been perfected from the original judgment of conviction. After a thorough review of the full record, made possible after the case was briefed and argued on the merits, we have concluded that the petition for certiorari was improvidently granted. The record shows that the District Court did in fact conduct a hearing upon the petitioner's § 2255 motion, 156 F.Supp. 313, but that the minutes of such hearing have been lost. Whether or not that hearing was adequate need not, however, be determined, for we are satisfied from the record, which includes the trial transcript, that in any event this was a case where no hearing was required under the statute, because 'the files and records of the case conclusively show' that the petitioner was entitled to no relief. Therefore, and necessarily without approving or disapproving the view of the Court of Appeals on what now appears an extraneous issue, 108 U.S.App.D.C. 375, 282 F.2d 858, we dismiss the writ as improvidently granted. It is so ordered.

Writ dismissed.

Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, with whom THE CHIEF JUSTICE and Mr. Justice BLACK concur, dissenting.