John T. Dirring v. Commonwealth of Massachusetts

Petitioner Dirring, by no means a stranger to this court, having on a number of occasions sought unsuccessfully to review a federal sentence that he is presently serving, see Dirring v. United States, 1 Cir., 1968, 400 F.2d 578, cert. denied 393 U.S. 1098, 89 S.Ct. 891, 21 L.Ed.2d 788, has shifted his attack to a state on-and-after sentence. The state resisted his habeas petition in the district court both on procedural grounds, alleging, inter alia, failure to exhaust his state remedies, and on the merits. A magistrate reviewed the file and concluded that the court had jurisdiction and that…