The Detroit Free Press reports, "Federal court throws out death sentence in 1997 Michigan murder case." It's written by Tresa Baldas.
The federal government has struck out again in pushing the death penalty in Michigan.
A federal appeals court on Wednesday threw out a death sentence for Marvin Gabrion, who was convicted in the 1997 killing of a woman whose handcuffed and chained body, weighted with cinder blocks, was found in a lake in a national forest in western Michigan.
The ruling came almost a year after a federal jury in Detroit spared Timothy O'Reilly from the death sentence, concluding he deserved life in prison instead for killing an armored car guard during a botched robbery at a federal credit union in Dearborn. O'Reilly's codefendants also faced execution, but the government decided in March not to seek death in those cases.
In the Gabrion case, the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that a judge erred in barring the defense from telling jurors that Gabrion would have faced life in prison if the state tried the case.
And:
"There is no doubt that he murdered her and her infant daughter in June 1997 while awaiting trial for raping her," the federal appeals court wrote. "We conclude, however, that the District Court did err ... by refusing to allow Gabrion's counsel to argue for mercy ... on the ground that Gabrion could not have received the death penalty if the body had been found 227 feet away, outside the (Manistee) National Forest."
Meanwhile, death penalty opponents are wondering why the federal government is pursuing death cases in non-capital states.
"In essence, what they're doing is they're targeting non-capital states and imposing their will in a state where the people have spoken and said, 'We don't want the death penalty,' " said prominent criminal defense attorney Anthony Chambers, who has handled federal death penalty cases. "If the people wanted the death penalty, then there would be one."
"Appeals court overturns rare Mich. death sentence," is the AP report written by Ed White. It's via the Chicago Tribune.
A federal appeals court overturned a death sentence Wednesday for a western Michigan man who was convicted of drowning a young woman in a remote lake to prevent her from pursuing a rape case against him.
All three members of the panel upheld Marvin Gabrion's murder conviction. But two, while calling him a "vile" killer, said the sentencing phase of his extraordinary 2002 trial in Grand Rapids federal court must start from scratch.
Gabrion's lawyers should have been allowed to tell jurors that he would not have faced a death sentence if prosecuted in state court because Michigan doesn't allow capital punishment, the appeals court said.
U.S. District Judge Robert Holmes Bell had barred Gabrion's defense team from making that pitch during the sentencing phase. It may not have made a difference in the ultimate result, but the appeals court said it was a legitimate argument for the jury, which unanimously chose the death penalty.
"The case was not brought to serve a special national interest like treason or terrorism different from the normal state interest in punishing murder," said judges Gilbert Merritt and Karen Nelson Moore of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
"The jury should be given the opportunity to consider whether one or more of them would choose a life sentence rather than the death penalty when the same jury considering the same defendant's proper punishment for the same crime but prosecuted in Michigan state court could not impose the death penalty," the judges said.
In a vigorous dissent, Chief Judge Alice Batchelder said she would have affirmed the murder conviction and sentence.
And:
Federal prosecutors and the FBI in Grand Rapids took the case. They had many investigative tools that local authorities lacked, including a grand jury to compel witnesses to give testimony and return an indictment.
"We're reviewing the opinion and considering our options and consulting with U.S. Department of Justice in Washington," U.S. Attorney Don Davis told The Associated Press.
The government could ask the full appeals court to reconsider the decision, a request that is rarely granted. Otherwise, a new jury would be chosen strictly to sentence Gabrion to death or give him a life sentence. Meantime, he will remain in custody.
The 6th Circuit ruling in USA v. Gabrion is available in Adobe .pdf format.
Related posts are in the federal death penalty index.
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