USA - Arizona. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown out the death sentence of Steven Craig James, 53, white

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has thrown out the death sentence of Steven Craig James, 53, white, convicted in the murder of a man who was targeted for being gay. James has been on death row for nearly 30 years in the Nov. 17, 1981, beating death of Juan Maya. The judges wrote that James' attorney at the time was ineffective for his "complete failure" to investigate and present the sentencing judge with evidence of James' troubled childhood, bipolar disorder and history of chronic drug abuse — so-called mitigating factors that could have made him eligible for a sentence of life in prison instead of the death penalty. The panel ordered the U.S. District Court of Arizona to give state prosecutors a reasonable amount of time to resentence James. If the state chooses not to seek a new death sentence against James, he will automatically be given life in prison under Arizona law, the court wrote.