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Twins' ideologies, Barbara Walters's hairdresser's rent, the pols' favorite phrase, and other matters. ONLY IN AMERICA (con't)
(FORTUNE Magazine) – A pimp who coldly executed two handcuffed hotel security guards may escape the death penalty because a judge didn't . . . instruct the jury to consider ((that)) the defendant had found Jesus. The U.S. Supreme Court . . . vacated the death penalty for Miguel (''Silky'') Richardson, convicted in 1981 in the murder . . . at the downtown Holiday Inn . . . The Supreme Court ruled the jury should have received a special charge on mitigating evidence. The New York law firm that took up Richardson's case contended ((that)) the jury should have been specifically instructed to consider evidence that he had become very religious since the killings . . . ''Our argument is that doesn't mitigate anything,'' said Ed Shaughnessy, the district attorney's appeals chief. ''If everybody on Death Row who found Jesus is entitled to escape the death penalty, the state would never execute anybody,'' the prosecutor said. -- From a news report in the San Antonio Express-News. |
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