United States of America Ex Rel. Richard W. Mattox v. Herbert Scott, Warden, Illinois State Penitentiary, Joliet Branch,respondent-Appellee

How courts have described this case

Verbatim parenthetical descriptions written by other courts when citing this decision. Ranked by citation-network relevance.

• holding that default judgment is not an appropriate remedy for a state’s failure to answer a habeas corpus petition
• finding that an appropriate approach to a state’s failure to file an answer would be for “the district court [to] proceed to consider the petition as if a return had been properly made,” or “to censure the staff of the [state] and to refuse to consider the tardy return”
• default judgment is not an appropriate remedy 17 for a state’s failure to answer a habeas petition
• late filing of a motion to dismiss did not entitle a petitioner to entry of default
• “[A] habeas corpus petitioner [should not be] release[d] in the event of a failure to make a timely return, for the burden of default would then fall upon the community at large.”
• “[A] habeas corpus petitioner [should not be] release[d] in the event of a failure to make a timely return, for the burden of default would then fall upon the community at large.”

Source: CourtListener parenthetical corpus (CC0).