Frank C. Peterson (80-A-1720) v. Charles Scully, Superintendent of Greenhaven Correctional Facility

MESKILL, Circuit Judge:

In this appeal petitioner Frank Peterson contends that the district court should have granted his petition for a writ of habeas corpus because the conduct of the judge who presided over his state trial on charges of rape, sodomy and robbery deprived him of his constitutional right to a fair trial. He appeals from a judgment entered in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, Haight, J., denying his petition without reaching the merits of his claim. The district court reasoned that the state appellate court had refused to review the merits…