JACKSON, Miss. (AP) - A split decision by the Mississippi Supreme Court has affirmed the death sentence given to a man for the death of a 13-year-old DeSoto County girl killed with her mother and grandmother.
The Memphis Commercial Appeal (http://bit.ly/1yfWlgy ) reports that four judges signed the majority opinion in the case of Sherwood Brown, whose attorney argued in October that mild mental retardation barred his execution. Three judges dissented and one did not participate.
The U.S. Supreme Court in 2002 barred states from executing mentally disabled inmates.
Brown got the death penalty for killing 13-year-old Evangela Boyd, because jurors found that he killed her in 1995 while committing felony child abuse.
He got life sentences for the deaths of the child's mother, 48-year-old Verline Boyd, and her 82-year-old grandmother, Betty Boyd.
Information from: The Commercial Appeal, http://ift.tt/12zhHdI
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