Death Row Inmate Wins Sentencing Redo on Georgia Discovery Rule

A Georgia man on death row will be resentenced because a state rule giving prosecutors access to defendants’ expert reports violated his constitutional rights.

The man showed that the now-defunct Georgia rule impaired his ability to present mitigating evidence, and had a “substantial and injurious” impact on the jury’s sentencing determination, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit said Wednesday.

Demarcus Sears’ counsel elected not to “gamble” on seeking an expert witness to conduct a psychiatric examination for mitigation evidence at sentencing because he feared creating additional evidence for the state, the court said.

But psychological experts later ...