State v. Austin

OPINION

in which PANEL: FRANK F. DROWOTA, III, C.J, and E. RILEY ANDERSON and WILLIAM M. BARKER, JJ., joined.

The appeal in this capital case arises from the resentencing of Richard Hale Austin, who originally was convicted and sentenced to death in 1977 as an accessory before the fact in the premeditated murder of Julian Watkins. This Court affirmed the conviction and sentence. See State v. Austin, 618 S.W.2d 738 (Tenn.1981), cert. denied, 454 U.S. 1128, 102 S.Ct. 980, 71 L.Ed.2d 116 (1981). In 1997 the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals granted habeas corpus relief as to Austin’s sentence,…