James Edward Hardy, convicted in the 1983 murders of a woman and her young son...

James Edward Hardy, convicted in the 1983 murders of a woman and her young son, is entitled to a new penalty trial, the state Supreme Court unanimously ruled today. The high court kept intact the 1st-degree murder conviction, but said a new penalty phase is needed because there is now "substantial doubt" that he was the killer, as the prosecution had argued.
Hardy was convicted in 1983, along with Mark Anthony Reilly, of killing Reilly's wife and her 8-year-old son to collect on a life insurance policy. Nancy Morgan, 44, and her 8-year-old son Mitchell in May 1981. Hardy was arrested along with Clifford Morgan and Mark Reilly.
Prosecutors charged that Morgan, who stood to collect nearly $1 million in insurance benefits, hired Reilly, who in turn hired Hardy, and that the pair committed the murders.
All 3 defendants were convicted of 1st degree murder with special circumstances. Reilly and Hardy were sentenced to death; Morgan died of bone cancer before his trial could take place.
The California Supreme Court said it appears the actual killer in the murder-for-hire plot was another man who was not prosecuted for the slayings. After Hardy's appellate lawyers presented evidence that a 3rd conspirator, Calvin Boyd, did the actual killing, the Supreme Court said that probably Boyd was the actual killer, but Hardy was still guilty of murder for his active participation in planning the murders.
Boyd apparently convinced investigators and prosecutors that he had nothing to do with the killings, in part because his wife and stepson said he was passed out drunk at home the night of the murders, and later had been given immunity from prosecution for his testimony against Hardy and the other conspirators. The Supreme Court said Hardy's evidence that he wasn't the actual killer "so undermines our confidence in the penalty verdict that a different, more favorable result was reasonably probable had this evidence been presented to the jury."