Roosevelt Partee v. Frank X. Hopkins

LOKEN, Circuit Judge.

After a bench trial, a Nebraska state court convicted Roosevelt Partee of being a felon in possession of a firearm. He was sentenced to twenty to fifty years in prison as an habitual criminal based upon two prior second-degree murder convictions. See Neb. Rev.Stat. § 29-2221. He appealed, arguing that a 1970 Arkansas murder conviction should not have been used to enhance his sentence because there was no proof that his guilty plea complied with Boykin v. Alabama, 395 U.S. 238, 89 S.Ct. 1709, 23 L.Ed.2d 274 (1969). The Nebraska Supreme Court affirmed, holding that, so long…