Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Tennessee death-row inmate's conviction overturned

These prosecutors should be prosecuted and jailed for conspiracy to commit murder.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/10/12/tennessee-death-sentence-overturned/1630757/

Brad Heath, USA TODAY October 12. 2012

A Tennessee judge on Friday overturned the conviction and death sentence of a man who has spent 14 years on death row over the killing of an ex-girlfriend whose body was never found.

A USA TODAY investigation last year showed that Memphis prosecutors responsible for the case never told the man, Michael Dale Rimmer, or his lawyers, about an eyewitness who had told the police that two different men were inside the office around the time she disappeared, and that both had blood on their hands. One of the men that the witness identified was already wanted in connection with a stabbing.

Shelby County Judge James C. Beasley Jr. wrote in a 212-page order released late Friday afternoon that Rimmer's trial lawyers repeatedly failed to unearth that evidence, a "devastating" blow to his contention that someone else committed the crime. That problem was compounded, the judge wrote, because the lead prosecutor in the case, Thomas Henderson, made "blatantly false, inappropriate and ethically questionable" statements to defense lawyers denying that the evidence existed.

No comments:

Post a Comment