Little v. Smith

SIDNEY 0. SMITH, Jr., Chief Judge.

Petitioner, a state prisoner, seeks habeas corpus relief. He contends that his convictions on charges of burglary and possession of burglary tools (for which he received concurrent sentences of twenty and ten years, respectively) are constitutionally infirm, because (1) he was tried by the court alone, without his having personally waived trial by jury and (2) the court, following the trial, imposed the maximum sentence on each charge, after having promised a sentence of only five years if petitioner would plead guilty.

In regard to the lack of a jury,…