25 January 2010 :
A 3-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals overturned a federal judge's decision, reinstating the death sentence for Jason McGehee, 33, white. McGehee was convicted along with 2 others in the Aug. 19, 1996 death of 15-year-old John Melbourne Jr., white. Prosecutors argued that the trio kidnapped, tortured and killed the teen because he told police about their involvement in a theft. A federal judge last year threw out Jason Farrell McGehee's January 8, 1998 death sentence, saying the trial judge should have allowed evidence during sentencing that McGehee had a violent childhood. Testimony about a convicted murderer's rough childhood likely would not have stopped a jury from sentencing him to die, the federal appeals court said as it reinstated the death penalty.(source: Pine Bluff Commercial, 15/12/2009)
