the Georgia Supreme Court has thrown out the death sentence of William Marvin Gulley...

the Georgia Supreme Court has thrown out the death sentence of William Marvin Gulley who is credited with saving two people's lives, saying his lawyers failed to provide evidence of the good deeds during his trial.
The court ordered William Marvin Gulley be re-sentenced for killing Mary Garner, an 81-year-old woman, in 1994 during a burglary. Gulley's lawyers did not show that Gulley had rescued two people in Atlanta in 1992, the justices found. Writing for an unanimous court, Justice George Carley said, "Whatever our own opinions may be about the sentencing verdict in this case ... there is a reasonable probability that evidence of Gulley's having saved 2 persons' lives, at risk to his own life, would have changed that sentencing verdict". Gulley was sentenced to death in 1998 in Dougherty County for the murder.
Before the trial, Gulley's lawyers learned of a 1992 news article in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution about Gulley saving 2 people. But the lawyers failed to verify the story and never found either of the 2 survivors or their family members. Gulley, who worked as a painter, was credited with saving co-worker Dan O'Connor's life at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Atlanta's Buckhead neighborhood after O'Connor struck an electric wire with his power drill as he stood on a ladder.
Gulley saw O'Connor convulsing and kicked the ladder away, breaking contact with the electrical current. 2 days later, Gulley brought flowers to O'Connor at Grady Memorial Hospital where he was being treated. When Gulley got off the 10th-floor elevator, a mentally disturbed patient ran past him, smashed a window and tried to jump. But with the help of O'Connor's brother, Gulley pulled the woman inside before she could jump.