USA - Tennessee. Judge James C. Beasley overturned the conviction and death sentence of Michael Dale Rimmer, 46, white

Shelby County Judge James C. Beasley Jr. overturned the conviction and death sentence of Michael Dale Rimmer, 46, white, who has spent 14 years on death row over the killing of an ex-girlfriend, Ricci Ellsworth, 45, whose body was never found. A Usa Today investigation last year showed that Memphis prosecutors responsible for the case never told Rimmer, or his lawyers, about an eyewitness who had told the police that 2 different men were inside the office around the time she disappeared, and that both had blood on their hands. One of the men that the witness identified was already wanted in connection with a stabbing. Judge Beasley wrote in a 212-page order released late Friday afternoon that Rimmer's trial lawyers repeatedly failed to unearth that evidence, a "devastating" blow to his contention that someone else committed the crime. That problem was compounded, the judge wrote, because the lead prosecutor in the case, Thomas Henderson, made "blatantly false, inappropriate and ethically questionable" statements to defense lawyers denying that the evidence existed. Still, Beasley wrote, that conduct alone wasn't enough to overturn Rimmer's conviction and death sentence, because his lawyers could have discovered the evidence on their own if they had looked more carefully. Instead, he said, it was the "seriously deficient" investigation by Rimmer's "overburdened" lawyers that required him to order a new trial. Ellsworth, Rimmer's former girlfriend, disappeared from the office of a seedy Memphis motel where she worked as an overnight clerk on February 8, 1997, leaving behind only an office and bathroom soaked with blood. Her body has never been located. Rimmer, then 30, was the obvious suspect. The 2 had dated, but the relationship soured, and Rimmer eventually went to prison for raping her. Still, a witness who visited the motel office around the time Ellsworth disappeared told the police that he had seen two different men inside, both with blood on their hands. When FBI agents showed him photographs of possible suspects that included a photo of Rimmer, he picked out a different man, Billy Wayne Voyles, who was already wanted in connection with an unrelated stabbing. Rimmer's lawyers, Beasley wrote, were unaware of those facts, though they could have learned of the witness' identification if they had reviewed the "residual" evidence in the court clerk's vault. Instead, he wrote, they relied on Henderson's repeated representations that no such evidence existed. Rimmer was convicted and sentenced to death a first time in 1998 for the murder of Ricci Lynn Ellsworth, 45, but a state appeals court awarded him a new trial after ruling the jury’s verdict form was improper and ambiguous. He was sentenced to death again on August 26, 2004 (by a jury on Jan. 13, see).