Spears v. Mullin

LUCERO, Circuit Judge.

Convicted in the Oklahoma courts of the first-degree murder of Jimmy DeWayne Thompson and sentenced to death, Brian Spears and Dudley Powell each filed a 28 U.S.C. § 2254 petition seeking relief from their convictions and sentences.1 After concluding that photographs introduced during the second stage of trial rendered the sentencing stage fundamentally unfair, the federal district court granted relief from both Spears’ and Powell’s death sentences, but denied relief on numerous other claims challenging both defendants’ convictions. We now consider four appeals: the…