Death Penalty Upheld Despite Prosecutor’s ‘Egregious Remarks’

A prosecutor’s remarks at the sentencing phase of a capital murder case that one judge called “outrageous” don’t warrant overturning the sentence, a federal appeals court ruled.

Denying a bid for habeas relief, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit said Georgia’s Supreme Court reasonably found that the prosecutor’s closing argument didn’t violate Lyndon Pace’s due process right to a reliable sentencing.

The state high court’s due-process finding “wasn’t beyond fair-minded disagreement given the number of aggravating circumstances that grossly outweighed the mitigating circumstances and the ‘heinous nature of the offense[s],’” Judge Robert J. Luck wrote for the ...