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| Appeals court grants death row inmate an 11th-hour hearing |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 01/03/2005 |
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Donald Beardslee is a confessed killer of two, shooting one woman, and stabbing and strangling another during a daylong rampage in 1981. After losing a maze of appeals, including claims that his trial lawyer poorly represented him, Beardslee is scheduled to die by lethal injection Jan. 19. But it's unclear whether that date will stick, and whether Beardslee will become the 11th condemned inmate to be executed since California voters reinstated capital punishment in 1978. Hours after a San Mateo County (Calif.) judge issued an execution date two weeks ago, a federal appeals court said it would examine a fresh and legally nuanced appeal from Beardslee's lawyers in a bid to keep the 61-year-old alive along with 640 other condemned inmates on the nation's most clogged death row. The decision from the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, which has overturned more death sentences than it has sanctioned, came after decades of legal wrangling in which the California Supreme Court, a federal judge, a federal appeals court and the U.S. Supreme Court all said Beardslee should die. The appeals court did not indicate when it would rule, but announced Dec. 23 it would hear oral arguments on Beardslee's latest challenge. Beardslee was convicted in San Mateo County of killing Paula Geddling and Stacey Benjamin to get even for a soured drug deal. |
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