USA - Wyoming. U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson has overturned the death penalty for Dale Wayne Eaton

U.S. District Judge Alan B. Johnson has overturned the death penalty for Dale Wayne Eaton, 69, White, Wyoming's lone death row inmate. Judge Johnson stated Wyoming has a choice of either granting a new sentencing proceeding for Eaton within 120 days in Natrona County or keeping him locked up for life without parole. The 69-year-old Eaton was sentenced to death in 2004 in state court for the 1988 rape and murder of 18-year-old Lisa Marie. The investigation stalled until 2002, when DNA evidence linked Eaton to the case while he was in prison on unrelated charges. Investigators then unearthed the missing car on his property. Kimmell. Eaton's federal lawyers didn't dispute that he killed Kimmell. But they argued Eaton's state defense team had failed to present information to the jury about his tortured background to give jurors reason to consider sparing his life. Wyoming last carried out the death penalty in 1992 when it executed convicted murderer Mark Hopkinson. Several other death sentences have been overturned on appeal since then.