In Ex Parte Hull (1941) 312 U.S. 546, the court invalidated a prison regulation that permitted prison officials to intercept petitions for habeas corpus they deemed not to be in proper form and return them to the prisoner instead of forwarding them to the courts. The court held "the state and its officers may not abridge or impair petitioner's right to apply to a federal court for a writ of habeas corpus. Whether a petition for writ of habeas corpus addressed to a federal court is properly drawn and what allegations it must contain are questions for that court alone to determine." (Id. at p. 549.) The effect of the regulation in Hull was to allow a nonjudicial officer to decide the legal adequacy of a petition for habeas corpus.