USA - US MILITARY. The Air Force appellate court reinstated the death sentence of Andrew Witt

The Air Force appellate court reinstated the death sentence of Andrew Witt, reversing its decision in August that struck down the sentence on grounds of inadequate defense efforts. In an opinion issued today, the Air Force Court of Appeals said that Witt's court-martial on charges he'd murdered a young married couple had been fair, that his lawyers had been competent and that any mistakes they had made were inconsequential. On July 5, 2004 Witt stabbed to death Senior Airman Andrew Schliepsiek and his wife, Jamie, in their home on Warner Robins Air Force Base, Georgia. That Witt had killed the couple was never in doubt. His 3-lawyer defense team worked to spare him from the death penalty by trying to convince the jury that he'd been unable to form premeditation to murder in part because of the effects of adrenaline. On August 9, 2013 (see), 3 members of a 5-judge appellate panel agreed that deficiencies in the defense by Witt's lawyers, none of whom had tried a capital case before, had caused Witt not to receive a fair trial for sentencing. The judges were particularly troubled by the fact that the lawyers had not explored whether Witt's actions might have resulted from a possible traumatic brain injury he suffered from a motorcycle crash four months before the murders. Those judges also said that the defense should have pursued evidence about Witt's mother's inpatient mental-health care when he was a teenager, and that it should have sought testimony from a guard who thought Witt was remorseful. But in today's decision, 4 of 6 appellate judges reconsidering the case after a request by Air Force prosecutors disagreed.