Milton Reed v. Robert H. Butler, Sr., Warden, Louisiana State Penitentiary

POLITZ, Circuit Judge:

In 1977, Milton Reed staged a holdup armed with a toy pistol. He was convicted of armed robbery under Louisiana Revised Statutes 14:64 and sentenced to imprisonment for 30 years without benefit of parole, probation, or suspended sentence. Invoking 28 U.S.C. § 2254, Reed sought ha-beas corpus relief, claiming that he was not armed with a dangerous weapon at the time of the robbery. The district court granted the writ, 683 F.Supp. 565; the state appeals contending that under then-controlling Louisiana law, from the evidence presented the jury could find that Reed used a…