The state Supreme Court lifts 3 more death sentences

The state Supreme Court lifts 3 more death sentences. Antonio Richardson had been sentenced to death for the rapes and murders in 1991 of Julie and Robin Kerry. Andre D. Morrow faced a death sentence for murdering John Koprowski during a carjacking in 1994. Keith A. Smith had had been sentenced to life in prison in 1994 for the murder of a minister and to death by a judge for the murder of the minister's housekeeper. Supreme Court orders, signed by Chief Justice Ronnie White, said that the three men had been sentenced to death by judges rather than juries, their sentences would be reduced to life imprisonment without parole. The decisions were not unexpected. The state high court has been overturning death sentences since June of this year citing a U.S. Supreme Court decision that overturned a death sentence handed down in an Arizona court after a jury failed to reach a verdict in the penalty phase of the trial there. The state Supreme Court has overturned seven other capital punishment decisions and ordered new sentencing hearings in other death penalty cases.