Superior Court Judge Gary McCorvey has ordered a new trial for Larry Lee

Judge Throws Out Conviction Of Death Row Inmate - In Savannah, Superior Court Judge Gary McCorvey has ordered a new trial for Larry Lee, who has spent 20 years on death row. Judge McCorvey ruled prosecutors withheld evidence that key witnesses had lied, changed their stories and cut deals with authorities before testifying against Lee. McCorvey's order called the trial "fatally flawed" by "prosecutorial acts and omissions. The ruling also said Lee, 47, had an inadequate defense at his trial, where he was represented by a lawyer who had little experience with death penalty cases. A Wayne County jury sentenced Lee to death in 1987 for the murders of 48-year-old Clifford Jones, his wife, 47-year-old Nina Jones, and their 14-year-old son, Jerold.
The three were shot to death in their home on April 26, 1986 during a burglary. No physical evidence tied Lee to the crime scene. Prosecutors based their case primarily on two witnesses - Lee's sister-in-law, who said she and her husband took part in the robbery with Lee, and David Morris, a jailhouse snitch, who testified Lee had confessed to the murders while they were jailed together.
But prosecutors failed to disclose to Lee's lawyer, or to the trial jury, that Morris had testified for them as an informant in other criminal trials, the ruling said, or that his cooperation in Lee's case won Morris a transfer from a state prison to a more comfortable county jail. Sherry Lee, the wife of Lee's brother, agreed to testify against him after a Georgia Bureau of Investigation agent told her the GBI had learned they committed the crimes.
McCorvey's ruling says Sherry Lee's initial statements to authorities differed in key respects to her testimony at Larry Lee's trial.