USA - Texas. The Court of Appeals overturned the death sentence of Manuel Velez, 47, hispanic

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned 6-3 the death sentence of Manuel Velez, 47, hispanic, ruling that testimony from a prison expert during the punishment phase of Velez's capital murder trial in Cameron County was improper. Velez was sentenced to death on Oct. 24, 2008 (see) for the killing of his girlfriend's son, Angel Moreno, on Oct. 31, 2005. The court agreed with Velez's attorneys that prison expert A.P. Merillat was wrong when he testified about the security level classification of Texas inmates who serve life without parole. Velez's jury had the task of deciding between a death sentence and life without parole. Merillat and prosecutors who called him to testify as an expert witness on prisons and inmate violence should have known the testimony was incorrect, the court ruled. Merillat’s testimony was also the basis for a previous death sentence that was overturned after ACLU involvement in 2010 (see Adrian Estrada, June 16, 2010).