the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction and sentence of Curtis Edward McCarty

the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals reversed the conviction and sentence of Curtis Edward McCarty. McCarty has been convicted twice and sentenced to death 3 times in the case.
His conviction was based largely on the testimony of fired Oklahoma City police chemist Joyce Gilchrist. Oklahoma County District Court Judge Twyla Mason Gray had found Gilchrist either lost or destroyed critical evidence in the case. In 1986, Curtis Edward McCarty was first found guilty and sentenced to die in the murder of Pamela Kaye Willis. Willis, 18, was stabbed and strangled early Dec. 10, 1982. The state Court of Criminal Appeals later ordered a new trial, ruling Oklahoma City police chemist Joyce Gilchrist testified improperly. At a retrial in 1989, a 2nd Oklahoma County jury found McCarty guilty and also selected the death penalty. In 1995, the appellate court upheld the conviction but ordered a new sentencing. The court ruled McCarty had to be resentenced because during the second trial, jurors were not told they could sentence McCarty to life without parole. A jury in 1996 took 4 hours to return with McCarty's 3rd death sentence. On Tuesday, the state Court of Criminal Appeals overruled the second conviction, ordering a 3rd trial for McCarty. A police chemist for 21 years, Gilchrist was fired Sept. 25, 2001, after 21 years at the Oklahoma City police department as a chemist. She had been investigated by the FBI, and investigations were launched into more than 1,400 of the cases assigned to Gilchrist.