Appeals court tosses death sentence for Maurice Mason
Appeals court tosses death sentence for Ohio man
A federal appeals court on Friday threw out the death sentence of a man
convicted of beating and raping a woman and dumping her body in an
abandoned building in 1993.
A 3-judge panel of the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a
split-decision in the case of Maurice Mason.
The panel by a 2-1 vote held that Mason had poor legal help in the
sentencing portion of his 1994 trial in Marion County in the death of
Robin Dennis, 19, of Essex.
The appeals court said Mason's lawyers failed to interview his family and
investigate "the obvious red flags" in state records suggesting that
Mason's childhood was pervaded by violence and exposure to drugs in the
home from an early age.
Prosecutors have six months to hold a new sentencing hearing, the court
said.
The state will review the decision and consider its options, which include
asking for a review by the full court, said Jim Gravelle, a spokesman for
the Ohio attorney general's office.
David Stebbins, who represented Mason on appeal, praised the ruling.
"Obviously we have been litigating this for a long time," he said. "Trial
counsel had simply not done an investigation into his background and his
entire childhood was not presented."
Stebbins said Mason's parents were drug dealers who sold drugs out of
their home, Mason's father ran a prostitution ring and there was violence
in the house - with Mason's mother once shooting his father in front of
their children.
Judge Karen Nelson Moore, joined by Judge Eric Clay, delivered the 6th
Circuit opinion that reversed a 2005 federal district court decision
denying Mason's petition.
Chief Judge Danny Boggs dissented, writing that the opinion "sets an
almost impossibly high bar for defense counsel in capital cases."
Dennis' body was found inside an abandoned building in rural Marion County
on Feb. 13, 1993. An autopsy concluded that she was struck in the head and
her skull was fractured. Mason was convicted June 18, 1994, in Marion
County Common Pleas Court of rape and aggravated murder with a death
penalty specification that the murder occurred during the commission of a
rape.
On the Net: 6th Circuit:
www.ca6. uscourts. gov
(source: Associated Press)
