22 October 2020 :
Death penalty restored against Carman Deck.
A 3-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Monday said Carman Deck's appeal should fail because he didn't raise his concerns in state court first.
Deck robbed and killed James and Zelma Long in their home in July 1996.
Deck has been sentenced to death 3 times since his original conviction, and each time that sentence was overturned.
He was originally sentenced to death in February 1998, but that sentence was reversed by the Missouri Supreme Court in 2002 due to errors by Deck's lawyers.
The U.S. Supreme Court overturned his 2nd death penalty in May 2005 because he was shackled in front of the sentencing jury.
He was sentenced to death again in September 2008. But in April 2017, U.S. District Judge Catherine Perry called Deck's 3rd penalty-phase trial “fundamentally unfair," saying he was unable to fully present evidence arguing for a sentence other than death due to the decade of delays. She wrote that witnesses for Deck couldn't be found, had died or had developed “hostile attitudes” toward Deck. She called Deck’s lawyers "ineffective" for not claiming the delay was a constitutional violation during the trial, or during state court appeals.
The appeals court said that the law was not settled at the time about whether a long delay between conviction and sentencing raises constitutional violations, and therefore his lawyers were not ineffective for failing to raise the issue.
