Impact Litigation: Plea Agreement Revokes Client’s Death Sentence

A Winston trial team successfully negotiated a plea agreement with the Shelby County, Tennessee, District Attorney’s Office that revoked the death sentence our client has faced for nearly 20 years. As the ABA Death Penalty Project noted “a term-of-years plea deal for a reduced charge on a remand capital case is extremely rare.”

Winston’s involvement in this case began 13 years ago when a team in our New York office filed habeas petitions challenging our client’s federal and state convictions arising from his alleged participation in an armed robbery and the death two years later of a guard who was shot during the robbery.

During an evidentiary hearing in 2011 – nearly 10 years after the original state trial – Winston attorneys developed evidence that the joint federal and state task force that investigated the crime had paid our client’s ex-wife for her testimony against him at his federal trial. The district attorney failed to disclose this fact to defense counsel, a critical omission given that our client’s ex-wife was the pivotal witness in both trials.

Asserting that this omission constituted a so-called “Brady violation” of our client’s right to a fair trial, we won a significant victory in 2017 when the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed and remanded the district court’s denial of habeas relief in the state death penalty case. The new evidence developed by the Winston team also provides the basis for our client to renew his habeas petition challenging his federal conviction.

The retrial of our client’s state case was scheduled for July 2019 in Shelby County, Tennessee. Working with appointed Tennessee capital defense counsel Claiborne Ferguson and Mike Working, the team and its two experts set out to challenge the state’s theories that our client was involved in the armed robbery and that the guard died from the injuries he suffered during the robbery.

Julie, who works with teams of associates assigned to pro bono trials or evidentiary hearings to help them prepare and lend her insights, was on the ground in Tennessee with other Winston team members for three days of jury selection. “The associates got great experience qualifying and then selecting jurors for this death penalty case, as I took notes and provided my thoughts along the way,” Julie explained.

“Death penalty jury selection in the South was an eye-opening experience,” one of the associates said. “We devoted several days to identifying jurors who could set aside their personal feelings to return a fair verdict and sentence, but personal feelings about the death penalty inevitably took center stage. The process was certainly thought-provoking – and at times startling – and I’m glad we had such a great trial team to see everything through.”

After a jury had been selected, the state agreed to allow our client to plead to second-degree murder and to serve 25 years consecutive to his federal life sentence. “The plea agreement came together very quickly, and was a truly great result for everybody involved,” Julie said. The fact that prosecutors agreed to have our client plea to second-degree murder is really a reflection of the quality of the trial team.”

More than 60 other current and former Winston attorneys, most in the firm’s New York office, invested tremendous time and service to this 13-year effort.