03 April 2010 :

Dale County Circuit Judge Kenneth Quattlebaum has ordered a new trial for Emanuel Gissendanner Jr. in a 2001 killing, ruling the defendant's attorneys didn't do basic investigations to challenge the state's case and that prosecutors improperly withheld evidence. Judge Quattlebaum ruled that the original attorneys for Gissendanner, now 34, black, didn't even talk with the defendant's father and brother, who would have confirmed his claim that he was at home when 77-year-old Margaret Snellgrove was killed. Quattlebaum, who oversaw the sentencing hearing and 5-day trial in 2003, wrote in his order that "there is a reasonable probability that, but for the defense counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the proceeding would have been different."