Joseph Hobbs, Jr. v. Vernon L. Pepersack, Warden of the Maryland Penitentiary

SOBELOFF, Chief Judge.

Fifteen years ago, Joseph Hobbs, indicted in the Criminal Court of Baltimore City on eight counts charging armed robbery with a deadly weapon, pleaded guilty to three of them, and was sentenced to concurrent twenty year terms. In the intervening fifteen years he has filed more than forty petitions for habeas corpus in the Maryland courts and at least eight in the federal courts in an effort to set aside these convictions. His contention in the District Court in this case, as in the earlier proceedings, was that he was unconstitutionally denied the assistance of counsel…