USA - California. The U.S. Court of Appeals set aside the capital sentence of Douglas Ray Stankewitz, 54, Native American, California's longest-serving death row inmate

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit set aside the capital sentence of Douglas Ray Stankewitz, 54, Native American, California's longest-serving death row inmate. Mr. Stankewitz, then 20, has been on death row in California since October 1978, when he was convicted in the Feb. 8, 1978 kidnapping and murder of Ms. Theresa Greybeal, 22. In a 2-1 decision, the Ninth Circuit upheld a court order that Mr. Stankewitz's death sentence be vacated unless California officials seek to retry the capital phase of his case within 90 days or resentence him to life without parole. The ruling tracked that of U.S. U.S. District Judge Anthony W. Ishii of the Eastern District of California, which on Sept. 22, 2009 found that a lawyer for Stankewitz failed to investigate the defendant’s abusive childhood and long history of substance abuse. Stankewitz already had his conviction and sentence reversed by the state Supreme Court in 1982 because his mental competence to stand trial had not been evaluated. He was then re-tried and re-convicted by a Fresno County court in 1983.