Robert Walberg v. Thomas Israel

POSNER, Circuit Judge.

In this habeas corpus proceeding, Robert Walberg, who was convicted of burglary by a jury in a Wisconsin state court and sentenced to 28 years in prison, argues that his federal constitutional rights to effective assistance of counsel and to trial by an unbiased tribunal were violated. The district court disagreed, 587 F.Supp. 1476 (E.D.Wis.1984), as had the Wisconsin Supreme Court, State v. Walberg, 109 Wis.2d 96, 325 N.W.2d 687 (1982), and denied the petition for habeas corpus.

In this court the state argues for the first time that Walberg failed to exhaust his state…