Hands Off Cain
NEWS ARCHIVE·DEATH PENALTY·JANUARY 15, 2016

USA - Delaware. Jermaine Wright, a former death row inmate, heads back to prison.

USA - Delaware. Jermaine Wright, a former death row inmate, heads back to prison.

2 MIN READ
Jermaine Wright, a former death row inmate, heads back to prison. Wright turned himself into police Friday as a crowd of emotional well-wishers gathered to say goodbye. Wright is to face once again charges for the 1991 murder of a liquor store clerk. Wright was found guilty and sentenced to death more than two decades ago, but in a twist, he was granted a retrial and then was let out of prison on February 2, 2015 (see). After nearly a year of freedom, Wright is headed back to prison to await his trial following a Delaware Supreme Court ruling Tuesday that his videotaped confession can be used by prosecutors at his retrial. In a unanimous court opinion released Tuesday, the state's top 5 justices overturned a lower court's decision to toss the videotaped confession in which Jermaine Wright admits to the 1991 murder of Phillip Seifert, a disabled liquor store clerk. The confession was the linchpin of the state's death penalty case against Wright more than 2 decades ago - and would have made it nearly impossible to prosecute Wright at a retrial had the court not allowed the tape to be played. Wright was one of Delaware's longest serving inmates on death row before he was freed last year. He was accused of shooting Seifert, 66, during a robbery on Jan. 14, 1991. There were no eyewitnesses and no physical evidence from the murder, but an anonymous tip led police to Wright. Police did not have probable cause to charge him so they arrested him as a suspect in 2 unrelated shootings. While being interviewed by police, he confessed on camera to the murder. The state then used the videotaped confession to convince a jury to convict Wright and sentence him to death in 1992. In 2014 the Supreme Court overturned his conviction and ordered a retrial on the grounds that prosecutors withheld evidence in 1991 about a 2nd robbery that occurred at a store about a mile and a half away from the original crime scene. In anticipation of the retrial, Wright's attorneys filed a motion to suppress the videotaped confession, saying Wright was highly susceptible to suggestion and was not properly read his Miranda rights when he confessed at age 18.
SOURCES
  • (Source: The News Journal, 15/01/2016)