Court Upholds Rejection of Death Penalty for McPherson
The Georgia Supreme Court has upheld a lower court’s decision to throw out the death penalty given to Mark McPherson on the grounds that his lawyer was ineffective because he failed to present evidence of McPherson’s abuse and neglect as a child, his chronic drug and alcohol addiction, and his mental health problems.
McPherson has been on death row since 2000, when he was convicted in Floyd County of murdering Linda Ratcliff. In 2003, McPherson filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in Butts County where he is in prison, challenging the legality of his sentence. It threw out McPherson’s death sentence based on its finding that his trial counsel “had been ineffective in the investigation, preparation, and presentation of mitigation evidence.” The State then appealed but in the 6-to-1 decision, written by Chief Justice Leah Ward Sears, the high court has found the habeas court was right. Sears writes “we conclude as a matter of law that there was a reasonable probability that, were it not for trial counsel’s deficient performance in investigating and presenting mitigating evidence, at least one juror would have been persuaded to vote for a life or life without parole sentence,” Justice George Carley cast the lone dissenting vote.
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