USA - North Carolina. New sentencing hearing for William Leroy Barnes.

William Leroy Barnes to get new sentencing hearing.
Court rules juror’s conversation with pastor influenced jury. William Leroy Barnes, 59, Black, convicted and sentenced to the death penalty in 1994 for the murder of B. P. and Ruby Tutterow, will get a new sentencing hearing after the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Barnes had been denied his Sixth Amendment right to trial by an impartial jury. Barnes was tried in 1994 along with 2 co-defendants, Frank Junior Chambers and Robert Lewis Blakely, for the robbery and murder of a B.P. Tutterow, 75, and his wife Ruby, 78, in their home on October 29, 1992. According to court records, a juror’s contact with the juror’s pastor regarding the death penalty, and the juror sharing the conversation with the other jurors during deliberations, constituted an improper external influence on the jury which resulted in prejudice and had a “substantial and injurious effect” on the jury’s punishment decision. As a result of the ruling, the United States District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina has ordered that the State of North Carolina may conduct a new capital sentencing hearing in the next 300 days from the date of the Order which was December 7, 2020. (See also HoC Sept. 12, 2019). 

https://www.wbtv.com/2021/01/05/man-convicted-brutal-murder-elderly-salisbury-couple-get-new-sentencing-hearing/