"Condemned Ala. man claims evidence clears his name," is Greg Bluestein's AP filing. It's via the Athens Banner-Herald.
An Alabama death row inmate's attorneys came to the federal appeals court in Atlanta on Monday with a ream of new evidence they say helps exonerate their client. But the three-judge panel was more than a little skeptical about the arguments.
Billy Kuenzel was convicted of the November 1987 murder of Linda Jean Offord, a convenience store clerk in Sylacauga, Ala., and sentenced to die a year later. The 49-year-old refused to take a plea deal and has long maintained his innocence, and his attorneys say they uncovered new evidence in 2010 that backs his claim.
That's where they run into a legal roadblock. Prosecutors insist Kuenzel had a fair trial, and say the new information isn't enough to prove his "actual innocence," a stringent legal standard. Kuenzel's attorneys, though, asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to give them a chance to "salvage what time remains of his life."
All three judges on the panel on Monday did little to boost Kuenzel's hopes.
Circuit Judge J.L. Edmondson raised concerns about whether Kuenzel missed key deadlines to file the appeal, and said "it's close to impossible" to overturn a federal judge's ruling against his client. And Chief Judge Joel Dubina suggested the new details wouldn't be enough to change any juror's mind.
"The jury heard all of this, weighed all the evidence, chose who to believe, and found against your client," Dubina said.
Defense attorney David Kochman quickly responded: "Respectfully, the jury did not hear all the evidence."
"Questions loom in Alabama death-penalty case," is by Bill Rankin for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Kochman said Kuenzel's case is unlike no other, largely because his initial post-conviction appeal was found to have been filed six months too late, which has barred the introduction of newly discovered evidence.
In the meantime, Kuenzel's lawyers have uncovered grand jury testimony that throws into question the trial testimony of a key state witness and have learned that Venn, shortly before Offord's killing, may have borrowed a .16-gauge shotgun -- the kind used to kill Offord -- from a man who later told his wife he was worried the shotgun may have been the murder weapon.
Innocence claims such as those raised by Troy Anthony Davis, executed last year in the killing of a Savannah police officer, face enormous legal hurdles. Davis, after being denied a hearing for years, was finally granted one through an extraordinary ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. Even then, a judge rejected his case.
In 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court said condemned inmates asserting their actual innocence have to show "it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have found [the inmate] guilty beyond a reasonable doubt." Such inmates must support their innocence claims "with new reliable evidence -- whether it be exculpatory scientific evidence, trustworthy eyewitness accounts or critical physical evidence -- that was not presented at trial."
On Monday, all three appellate judges indicated Kuenzel had not cleared such a threshold.
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