William M. Gilday, Jr. v. Palmer C. Scafati

COFFIN, Circuit Judge.

Petitioner was tried and convicted of armed robbery in the Superior Court of Massachusetts in March 1964 and is presently serving his sentence of 15-25 years. During that trial, after petitioner had testified on his own behalf, the prosecutor offered evidence of five prior convictions to impeach petitioner’s credibility, three of which were the product of trials where petitioner neither had nor waived the assistance of legal counsel. Petitioner’s appeal from the district court’s denial of a writ of habeas corpus presents three issues concerning the use of these three…