Sammie L. Nelson v. John Moriarty, Superintendent of Massachusetts Correctional Institution at Walpole, Massachusetts

Petitioner, Sammie L. Nelson, is presently confined at the Massachusetts Correctional Institution, Walpole, Massachusetts, on, inter alia, a sentence for rape and abuse of a child (statutory rape). This is an application for a certificate of probable cause, the district court having dismissed Nelson’s petition for a writ of habeas corpus on an opinion by a magistrate, and refused a certificate. Petitioner has also moved for emergency relief consisting of an order that the district court conduct an evi-dentiary hearing on petitioner’s claim that he was denied effective assistance of counsel at…