Sorrentino

Appellant is confined in the United States Penitentiary at Alcatraz, California, serving a ten-year sentence imposed by the United States District Court for the Northern District of California. He filed a petition in the sentencing court for a writ of habeas corpus and as grounds for relief contended that his ten year sentence under Count 2 was imposed in violation of the Constitution of the United States in that his conviction was secured by the application of an unconstitutional statutory presumption.

The lower court denied appellant’s petition, stating that the statutory presumption which appellant attacks is reasonable and constitutional. Although the court denied appellant’s petition on the merits, it observed that under the circumstances the “proper remedy of appellant would appear to be a motion to vacate sentence under 28 U.S.C.A. § 2255 were it not for the decision of the Court of Appeals for this Circuit in Hayman v. United States, 1951, 187 F.2d 456 which seems to hold that a prisoner in federal custody cannot constitutionally be required to proceed under Section 2255 in any case.”

The petition of Sorrentino makes plain why he did not rely upon or resort to the…