26 June 2017 :

The United States Supreme Court reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit's decision (see Oct. 12, 2016) granting penalty-phase relief to Ohio death-row prisoner Percy Hutton. In a unanimous per curiam decision, the Court held that the 6th Circuit had misapplied habeas procedural rules and inappropriately reached the merits of a constitutional claim that Hutton was barred from raising because of his prior lawyers' failure to present it to the Ohio state courts. Percy "June" Hutton, 62, Black, was convicted in 1986 of fatally shooting Derek Mitchell and trying to kill Samuel Simmons in a dispute over a sewing machine. He was sentenced to death in 1987.