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New Sentencing Phase Trial Ordered for Jose Briseno

By Steve Hall

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruling in Ex Parte Briseno is available in Adobe .pdf format."Condemned Texas man wins new punishment trial," is the title of the AP report by Michael Graczyk via the Dallas Morning News.The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday threw out the death sentence of a man condemned for fatally shooting a South Texas sheriff nearly 20 years ago. The court ruled jurors who decided Jose Briseno should be put to death didn't have enough information in their instructions from the trial judge to make their decision. At the time of Briseno's 1992 trial, the rules regarding instructions for capital murder juries were evolving to comply with U.S. Supreme Court decisions. His appeals attorneys said the jury didn't receive proper instructions about how to consider mitigating evidence of Briseno's unstable family, troubled background, limited intellectual ability and poverty...continue to full post

Full post as published by StandDown Texas Project on June 10, 2010 (boomark / email).