A divided federal appeals court reversed one of its...

A divided federal appeals court reversed one of its own 3-judge panels and reinstated a death sentence. In an 8-3 ruling, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that jurors in Vernon Brown's trial were not wrongly kept from considering a letter on Brown's behalf from an Army stepbrother who was overseas in the prelude to the first Persian Gulf War. The opinion overturns an 8th Circuit panel's 2-1 ruling last year on september 19 (see) that the penalty phase of Brown's 1991 trial was "fatally flawed" by the blocking of Darius Turner's letter on Brown's behalf from Saudi Arabia. Brown remains on death row in the 1986 strangulation of a 9-year-old friend of his stepson.