21 April 2017 :

Death penalty overturned for third time for Carman Deck, 51, White. US District Judge Catherine Perry, in a ruling on Thursday, called the portion of Carman Deck's trial that led to the latest death sentence "fundamentally unfair". The St Louis Post-Dispatch reported that she ordered Deck to serve life in prison without parole for the killings of James and Zelma Long. "Deck's inability to present mitigation evidence prevented the jury from adequately considering compassionate or mitigating factors that might have warranted mercy," Perry wrote. Deck was first sentenced to death on April 27, 1998 for the July 8, 1996 murders of James and Zelma Long during a robbery. Two other death sentences also were overturned, including by the US Supreme Court in 2005 because he had been shackled in the presence of jurors. Deck's original death sentence from 1998 was reversed in 2002 by the Missouri Supreme Court, which found errors by his lawyer. He was shackled in front of the jury over his lawyer's objections during the second penalty-phase trial in April 2003. The US Supreme Court reversed the death sentence in May 2005. His third penalty-phase trial started in September 2008. Perry determined that "substantial" evidence arguing against the death penalty in Deck's first two penalty phases was unavailable for the third because witnesses had died, couldn't be found or declined to co-operate.