USA - California. The California Supreme Court has overturned 4-3 the death sentence imposed on Gary Grimes

The California Supreme Court has overturned 4-3 the death sentence imposed on Gary Grimes, 53, White. The Court ordered a penalty phase retrial for Grimes after the trial court had improperly prevented the defense from presenting a statement from the actual killer that he had acted alone. The court denied Grimes' claim that the statement also entitled him to a new trial. Grimes was sentenced to death in Shasta County on January 27, 1999 for the stabbing death of a 98-year-old woman, Elizabeth Bone, in her home on October 18, 1995. Grimes, John William Morris and Patrick James Wilson, were all arrested and charged with stabbing and strangling Ms Bone during a home invasion robbery. Morris, then 20 years old, killed himself in the Shasta County Jail shortly after his arrest. But before dying, Morris told a witness that he killed Bone, not Grimes or Wilson. Morris told another inmate in jail that he killed Bone, but the other 2 were in the house during the murder but did not participate, the ruling says. Those statements were not allowed at trial. Another witness, whose testimony was allowed, said Grimes played a leadership role in the killing. "The excluded statements would have given the defense a substantial basis for countering the prosecutor's argument," says the ruling. While the court did not overturn Grimes' murder conviction, the justices ordered resentencing in the case.