Marcus Wellons' Death Penalty Upheld After Chocolate Penis Appeal
Giving a judge a penis-shaped chocolate may be "tasteless and inappropriate," but it doesn't make for an unfair trial, a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday.
Marcus Wellons, now 57, was convicted of the 1989 rape and strangling murder of 15-year-old India Roberts and sentenced to death in 1993.
In 2010, however, the Supreme Court ordered a review panel to take another look at the case after Wellon's lawyer, Mary Elizabeth Wells, argued that her client could not have received a fair trial because the judge and bailiff received gifts of erotically shaped chocolate from jurors.
Superior Court Judge Mary Staley received a piece of white chocolate shaped like a penis from juror Mary Jo Hooper, while bailiff Loretta Perry was reportedly gifted a breast-shaped chocolate from a juror who has yet to come forward.
Wells maintained that the bawdy nature of the gifts indicated that the jury was not taking the murder trial seriously
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/09/27/marcus-wellons-chocolate-penis-appeal-death-penalty_n_1920507.html
...go figure!
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