USA - Pennsylvania. A jury sentenced Wayne Smith, 56, black, to death

A Delaware County jury sentenced Wayne Smith, 56, black, to death for the Nov. 18, 1994, strangulation of Eileen Jones, 26, white. Smith confessed to the police, according to a taped statement played for the court. Smith was convicted of 1st-degree murder in May 1995 and given a death sentence. He appealed the death penalty sentence to the state Supreme Court. The court affirmed the murder conviction in 2010, but ordered a new hearing on the death penalty. Because the murder conviction was upheld, only 2 options remained open to the new jury: Life imprisonment or death. The appeals court determined that defense counsel’s “inadequate investigation” and “narrow focus on cocaine-induced psychosis as the key to the guilt phase, coupled with his disregard for other forms of mental health mitigating evidence, which would have been useful at the penalty phase, cannot be said to have been a reasonable strategy.” Judge James Bradley has not set a date for formalizing the sentence.