OKLAHOMA CITY — The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday ordered an Oklahoma court to grant a death row inmate's appeal of his first-degree murder conviction and death sentence in a 1995 Pittsburg County killing.
A three-judge panel of the Denver-based appeals court found that the district court and the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals erred when they ruled that Charles Taylor wasn't constitutionally entitled at trial to a correct jury instruction on the lesser-included offense of second-degree murder and that the error wasn't harmless, the judges wrote in a 32-page opinion.
"Because we conclude that the OCCA's decision on this point was 'contrary to ... clearly established federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court of the United States,' we reverse the district court's denial of Mr. Taylor's petition for habeas relief on his first degree murder conviction, making it unnecessary to reach his other arguments," the judges wrote.
Tulsa World: Appeals court overturns Oklahoma conviction, sentence in murder case