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Fifth Circuit Panel Reverses Earlier Decision, Allows Appeal

By Steve Hall

"Justices reverse decision barring death row appeal," is the title of Lise Olsen's report in today's Houston Chronicle.The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed itself in a surprising new opinion that revives an appeal by a Texas death row inmate that previously had been denied for being filed one day too late.The unusual about-face does not give a new trial to Keith Thurmond, a Montgomery County man convicted in 2002 of killing his estranged wife and her lover during a child custody dispute, but it grants him the right to argue the case for his appeal in federal court.Thurmond's case had received statewide publicity because of problems with the legal defense he received after conviction. His first court-appointed appellate attorney was inexperienced and filed a bare bones state appeal...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on August 11, 2009 (boomark / email).