Edward Allen Mead, 32036 v. Raymond W. Meier, Warden

Edward Allen Mead, in penal custody under a judgment of conviction of the State of Alaska, appeals from a district court judgment denying his application for a writ of habeas corpus. His prime ground for relief, as stated in his petition, is that under the circumstances of his state trial he was deprived of effective assistance of counsel as required by the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments.

The district court denied the petition without a hearing on the ground that it was without jurisdiction. The court concluded that it was without jurisdiction because, although petitioner had taken a state appeal from his conviction “* * * he has not shown that he has exhausted his available state remedies relating to state habeas corpus or post-conviction relief.”

The decision in petitioner’s state appeal is reported in Mead v. State, 445 P.2d 229 (Alas.1968). A good deal of this decision is devoted to Mead’s contention, before the Alaska Supreme Court, that the state trial judge abused his discretion in denying Mead a continuance of the trial. But that court also discussed and rejected the same ineffective-assistance of counsel argument that Mead advances in his federal habeas petition. Thus…