the Kentucky Supreme Court has upheld 6-0 a circuit court's decision to throw...

the Kentucky Supreme Court has upheld 6-0 a circuit court's decision to throw out a death sentence because the defendant's lawyer ineffectively represented him at trial. In a unanimous decision, the court agreed that Charles Bussell should receive a new trial after he was convicted in 1991 of the robbery and murder of Sue Lail. If the decision isn't appealed, it will become final in 20 days and Bussell, 52, will be moved off death row at the Kentucky State Penitentiary while awaiting retrial. It was the second time in seven months that the state Supreme Court has thrown out a death-penalty conviction because of shoddy lawyering. In November, the Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling reversing the death sentence and conviction of Hugh Marlowe, who was convicted in 1992 of robbing and murdering Henry Hamlin on Dec. 3, 1990.
Bussell's conviction was thrown out in 2005 by Special Judge Charles Boteler, who found that police withheld reports suggesting the possibility of a different suspect, and that Bussell's trial was a "textbook example of ineffective assistance of counsel."