John Lee Boyd v. Steve W. Puckett, Superintendent of the Mississippi State Penitentiary at Parchman

JERRY E. SMITH, Circuit Judge:

The state respondents appeal from the district court’s grant of a writ of habeas corpus conferred on the basis of evidence newly discovered after petitioner John Lee Boyd’s state trial and conviction for murder, for which he received a life sentence. Concluding that the district court’s determination is contrary to binding precedent from the Supreme Court and this court, we reverse and render.

I

Three years after petitioner’s trial, new evidence was discovered to the effect that on the day of the murder the victim had armed himself and had gone out to practice…